AMD today announced that it had signed an agreement to acquire ZT Systems for $4.9 billion. ZT Systems provides hyperscale server solutions for cloud computing and artificial intelligence. With over 29 years of comprehensive engineering expertise and strong partnerships with leading technology suppliers, ZT Systems already serves the world"s leading cloud and telecom service providers. AMD plans to accelerate the deployment of AMD-powered AI infrastructure for customers worldwide through this acquisition.
Once the acquisition is completed, ZT Systems will become part of the AMD Data Center Solutions Business Group. ZT CEO Frank Zhang will lead the manufacturing business, and ZT President Doug Huang will lead the design and customer enablement teams. Additionally, AMD will sell ZT Systems" U.S.-based data center manufacturing business to a strategic partner.
AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su said the following regarding the acquisition:
“Our acquisition of ZT Systems is the next major step in our long-term strategy to deliver leadership training and inferencing solutions that can be rapidly deployed at scale across cloud and enterprise customers. ZT adds world-class systems design and rack-scale solutions expertise that will significantly strengthen our data center AI systems and customer enablement capabilities. This acquisition also builds on the investments we have made to accelerate our AI hardware and software roadmaps. Combining our high-performance Instinct AI accelerator, EPYC CPU, and networking product portfolios with ZT Systems’ industry-leading data center systems expertise will enable AMD to deliver end-to-end data center AI infrastructure at scale with our ecosystem of OEM and ODM partners.”
Frank Zhang, CEO of ZT Systems, said the following regarding joining AMD:
“We are excited to join AMD and together play an even larger role in designing the AI infrastructure that is defining the future of computing. For almost 30 years, we have evolved our business to become a leading provider of critical computing and storage infrastructure for the world’s largest cloud companies. AMD shares our vision for the important role our technology and our people play in designing and building the computing infrastructure powering the largest data centers in the world.”
AMD expects the transaction to increase its earnings (excluding certain costs) by the end of 2025. After falling behind NVIDIA in the AI race, AMD is now making a series of investments to improve its AI capabilities significantly. AMD specifically highlighted that it invested more than $1 billion last year to expand the AMD AI ecosystem and strengthen its AI software capabilities, which it is lagging behind NVIDIA.