Advanced Micro Devices
needs India to keep up with the growing demand for its products, according to its executive vice president and chief technology officer, Mark Papermaster, in an exclusive interview with CNBC.
“We have a global workforce. Our design efforts are global, and continuing our growth in India is essential in order to meet the increasing demand for our products,” Papermaster said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Thursday.
On Friday, AMD announced its plans to invest approximately $400 million in India. This investment will be used to build the company’s largest design center, which is expected to open before the end of 2023, and to add about 3,000 engineering roles by the end of 2028.
“We started with a small number of employees in Delhi in 2001. Today, we have over 6,500 full-time employees and over 3,500 service contractors, making a population of around 10,000 people. We are thrilled to be expanding our investment in India, which is a significant part of our portfolio and product development,” said Papermaster.
AMD is a leading provider of high-end graphics processing units for artificial intelligence. Their processors can be found in various devices, including computers, servers, and gaming consoles.
“We’re really excited about our next generation AI chip, MI300. It’s going to be the most powerful AI chip in the industry and comes at a time when the industry needs more AI computing power,” said Papermaster.
“And we have a design team in India working on it. Almost every product we develop at AMD is touched by our India design team,” Papermaster added.
Ruben Roy, managing director of equity research at financial services firm Stifel, stated that AMD is the “only viable alternative” to Nvidia’s
high-performance H100 and A100 GPUs.
“They’re pushing very hard. R&D is going up. They are investing quite aggressively in AI,” Roy said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Wednesday.
Papermaster stated, “What we focus on is leveraging the latest cutting-edge semiconductor nodes and using our design expertise to differentiate our products.”
“And that’s where India comes in. About 25% of our global population is in India, and we have a workforce dominated by engineers,” he added.
This week, the government of Karnataka announced that Taiwan’s Foxconn will invest over $600 million in India for a phone manufacturing project and a separate semiconductor equipment facility.
Diversifying
Papermaster mentioned that AMD is actively exploring options to diversify its supply chains. This move is prompted by the ongoing U.S.-China tensions that have affected companies doing business in both countries.
“In terms of mitigating manufacturing risks, we have a diverse supply base. We will continue to seek options to further diversify our supply base,” he explained.
“As a semiconductor design company with a strong presence in India, we believe that enhancing the diversity of our supply chain and establishing key elements of it in India will be beneficial for us,” he added.
He also highlighted the “Make in India” program initiated by India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which offers incentives for semiconductor companies to develop, manufacture, and assemble products in India.
In an earnings call on Tuesday, Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, emphasized the importance of the Chinese market for the company. She mentioned the possibility of developing a China-specific AI chip to comply with U.S. export restrictions, following the lead of competitors Nvidia and Intel.
Despite continued weakness in the PC market, AMD reported better-than-expected second-quarter results on Tuesday.
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