AMD CEO Lisa Su Isn’t Afraid of the Competition

0:00This spring, the Chicago Independent Venue League presents Civil Fest 2026, a celebration of live music and community events across Chicago's independent stages. From April 16th through 25th, experience concerts and special events at venues like Metro, Salt Shed, Talia Hall, Old Town School of Folk Music, The Auditorium, Ramova Theater, Beat Kitchen, Chop Shop, and dozens more. From intimate clubs to legendary rooms, all spotlighting the artists and spaces that define our city. Learn more at CIVLChicago.com. Civil Fest 2026. Your city, your venues, your festival. Hey, Lauren, how you doing? Mike, I've been pondering the word tape.

0:49Because we're taping a podcast? Because we say we're taping a podcast. Sure. I don't think the kids know what that means. I mean, they may know what it means in the abstract, but I don't think they've had the visceral experience of actually recording something onto tape. Onto tape and rewinding the tape. Be kind, rewind, all of that. Yep. No, so I guess we're supposed to say we're recording a podcast now? Recording works, yeah. Recording, yeah. It's like when people say, let me film that. You know, you're not actually filming anything. You're shooting a digital video. So then if you have a video podcast, are you shooting the podcast?

1:22What do you say? Do you say taping then? I think you say recording because it's just... Recording the pod. Yeah. We're recording the pod. It covers all the bases. We're capturing it. That's what we're doing. We're sublimating it. All right. Well, should we record this pod? I would like to, yes. Let's do it. Honestly, I'm still recovering from last week's big interview event. My throat is still feeling a little bit raw, even though it's been like four or five days. You sound delightful to me. Thank you. But that really was an epic event. It was. Yeah. You were on stage. I was. I was first up in the morning.

1:58Katie, our boss, gave the intro to the conference. And then it was me and Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD. And not only was it a really interesting conversation, but then I was done for the day. I didn't have to do any more interviews after that. And I just got to listen and absorb. And there were some other really great talks. There were, yes. And we're going to talk through some of them. We're also going to listen to your conversation with Lisa Su, and then we'll talk about it. and we'll take listeners behind the scenes of the big interview. Let's take them behind the curtain. Let's do it. This is Wired's Uncanny Valley, a show about the people, power, and influence of Silicon Valley.

2:33Today, we're breaking down the key conversations that went down at our big interview event in San Francisco last week. Since last year, Wired has hosted this space where the most forward-thinking innovators, whether they're in tech, politics, science, or culture, have in-depth conversations with us that go beyond the headlines. This year, the lineup included Anthropics co-founder Daniela Amodei, scientist and author of Super Agers Eric Topal, and Wicked's director John M. Chu, among many others. We'll dive into what ideas caught our attention the most, which ones we're skeptical about, and what these conversations tell us about the future of the industries that shape our lives.

3:10I'm Michael Kalori, director of consumer tech and culture. And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent.

3:22Lauren, before we hear your conversation with AMD's Lisa Su, it is worth saying that this is not your first time speaking with her. Can you share a bit about her background and how your previous reporting informed this conversation that you had with her at Big Interview? I first got to know Lisa Su in person earlier this year. I had the opportunity to go down to Texas where AMD has offices and labs, and that's where Su spends most of her time. And we not only spoke for a big magazine piece that I was working on for Wired, but she gave me a tour around some of the testing facilities that they have there.

3:57So I got to see the chips they make being put through their paces in these labs. Also had this really fun opportunity at one point where we were all traveling in separate cars around, like the labs are in the rolling hills of Austin. And so we had to drive between the labs. And at one point she turned to me and she said, do you want to come in my car? And I said, of course I do. So it was me, her, her driver and her bodyguard. And normal day for me. And we just had an in-depth conversation about AI and the news and what she's focused on. And we shared some personal anecdotes about dealing with the healthcare system.

4:31But she really is a pretty remarkable CEO. She was born outside of the United States. She was born in Taiwan in 1969, moved to Queens, New York at a very young age, was raised there. Her father worked for this city as a statistician. Her mother was an accountant who later became an entrepreneur. And then Sue's background is in electrical engineering. She went to MIT. I tried reading her thesis, her PhD thesis, because she is Dr. Lisa Sue. And boy, was that just go straight over my head. I actually sent it to someone who's an electrical engineer and said, could you help me parse this? So she's super smart.

5:07She runs one of the biggest chip companies in the world. Yeah, yeah. And then she made her way up through various semiconductor companies. And then she landed at AMD in 2012 and about 18 months later became CEO. And she has executed what is widely acknowledged to be a remarkable 10-year turnaround of that company. AMD was on the brink of bankruptcy in the early 2000s. Since 2014, when she took over as CEO, the company's market cap has risen from around$2 billion to nearly$360 billion. It's not bad. It's pretty good. Now, the juxtaposition there, though, is, of course, NVIDIA. People always ask about NVIDIA.

5:50And NVIDIA is, you know, a$4 trillion company now. And it's a company that's widely recognized as having smartly foreseen the AI revolution and pivoted its business to focus on AI GPUs. And NVIDIA still has the overwhelming share of the GPU market. AMD makes both CPUs based on the x86 architecture, but they also have this AI GPU and AI accelerator business, and they have a fast-growing data center business. And so what we're seeing in the chip market broadly right now is all of these different chip makers, whether it's a company that started out making chips like an AMD or NVIDIA, or whether it's a giant hyperscaler or cloud company like Google or Amazon now getting in the game and making chips.

6:35Everyone wants a chip. Everyone wants to make a chip. And this is what's really kind of powering the AI revolution. So we had a lot to talk about on stage. I was, frankly, bummed to be limited to 25 minutes with her. I may have gone over by just a few. And I just always really enjoy talking to Lisa. All right, then. We're going to listen to the conversation that you had. It's a slightly condensed version of your conversation, but let's give it a listen.

7:04Dr. Lisa Su. It's wonderful to be here, Lauren. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for being here. We're so excited. I should note for everyone that Lisa revealed to me backstage that she's already been up and boxed this morning. Approximately 5 a.m. So I think you're ready to go. I am ready to go. All right. Are you guys ready to go? Is everyone ready to go? All right. All right. Welcome to San Francisco. You spend a lot of time in Texas. It's kind of where your home base is. Yes. So you're traveling around a lot these days. I think it's safe to say that there's a vibe in San Francisco right now.

7:40And I think that's due in large part to AI. Would you agree with that? I would absolutely agree with that. I mean, the talent and the energy and the innovation that has come into San Francisco has definitely just accelerated over the last 12, 18 months. And it's wonderful to see. Which leads me to the question, are we in a bubble? So let's start with, are we in the bubble? And I will say, Lauren, emphatically from my perspective, no. If we take a step back and you look at where we are in AI today, it sounds like something that people say, but it's something that I truly believe. Like AI is the most transformative technology of my career, of my lifetime.

8:26I mean, you can see the power of the technology and we're so early in the usage of it. So I find it really interesting when people ask, are we in a bubble? And I'm like, we haven't even gotten started yet. The amount of progress that we've made in the last couple of years has been wonderful, but we're still at the very early innings of seeing what AI can do and how it can really enhance productivity, how it really changes businesses, how it really changes the way we think about science and healthcare and all of those reasons. I think we are still so early in the cycle. And it's a really, really exciting time for me personally, because every day you see something new and you learn something new.

9:09And that's why it's so exciting to be in tech. Do you think that the concerns then about it being a potential bubble are totally overstated? I mean, you have to understand in a sense why people might be looking at this and looking at the immense amounts of capital that are being invested right now into AI and wonder about this? I do think the concerns are somewhat overstated. And that's probably because, you know, we're not used to bets this big. And it is true, like the types of bets that you're seeing in AI for, you know, the largest hyperscalers in the world, for the largest technology companies in the world, you know, for, you know, companies like ourselves, we are making much bolder and bigger bets because of where we are in the AI cycle and the power that we have.

9:54But I think what people are underestimating is the fact that there is so much demand for technology that the underlying health of the ecosystem is really, really strong. I mean, there's tremendous free cash flow being generated by the largest hyperscalers. There's a tremendous demand for technology. And the macro is actually really quite strong as well. And so when you add those things together, you say, yes, are we investing big? Yes, we are. But we are investing big at the right time because of the technology capability. And you have to assume that the people who are running these companies are very rational, smart people.

10:36You assume a lot. Oh, come on, Lori, really? Present company excluded. You assume a lot. Let's unpack the demand aspect of this. I had a feeling that you were going to say that, you know, incredible amount of demand. You've said that before. where the leaders of companies like Microsoft, NVIDIA, everyone's talking about the immense amount of demand for AI. Unpack that a little bit. What does it actually look like? Who's demanding it? What are they demanding it for? Is this enterprise? Is this customers? Yeah, I think you see it in several aspects, right? When we first started, if you were like to go back two years ago, or even 12 months ago, I think there was a lot of demand for training models.

11:16People were trying to figure out, and even today, we're trying to figure out Who's going to have the best model? We've certainly seen a lot of new innovation in that area. But I think what's really driving demand today is just AI usage. People are asking AI to do more. They're asking more questions. They are putting together more complex tasks. There's more in terms of agents that are doing work. And with that demand, what we're seeing is that there's just not enough computing power that's installed today. So in a sense, the way I like to tell the analogy is if you equate sort of computing use with using AI to intelligence and you're running a company, like why wouldn't you want to have more intelligent capability?

12:01And for that reason, the investment is justified, but it takes time. There's a lag between when you want the computing capability and when you actually have it. I guess I wonder if it's more of a top-down effect right now that's happening, where tech companies, hyperscalers, chip makers are saying, no, no, no, there is demand versus bottom-up, where it's actually the consumers and the clients who are saying, no, we want this power. Like, is it an element of if we build it, they will come? No, I think there really is real demand from the standpoint of there are so many more things that we would want to do if there was more computing capability out there.

12:40And I think you hear that from just being sort of in the trenches. Like the way I view it is, you know, I spend a lot of time with our top customers, you know, sort of the top thought leaders in the area. And every conversation is like, yes, it's great where AI is today, but we know it's not yet good enough. Like we know that there's more innovation that can be done. Like from a very personal standpoint, when we look at AI within AMD, like we've made significant progress using AI within AMD, but I know that it can do more. And the idea of unlocking more capability in terms of building better chips, higher quality, lower cost, really automating that whole process, which is still so early.

13:22When you look at the competitive landscape right now, who keeps you up at night? When I look at the landscape right now, what keeps me up at night is how do we go even faster in terms of innovation? And I say that because the one thing that we can't ever get back is time. And when you look at, you know, how do you make major leaps in technology? It is all about how do you take really good ideas and get them to market faster than your competition. And so from that standpoint, it really is about how do we get our technology out there? So it's about being faster. Yes. Faster than who?

14:09How about fastest? Is that OK? Well, the thing that I'd like to perhaps say about this market that is also important is it is unlike any other market that I've been part of. And when I say it's been unlike any other market, it's because the rate and pace of innovation is faster. the risks that people are willing to take with new technology. And the fact is, you see this constant leapfrogging as well, right? So, you know, the conversation this month is, you know, the great job that Google has done with Gemini 3, and you got to give them a lot of credit. It's a great model. But if you think about all of the things that have happened in the last 11, 12 months, you know, we were talking about DeepSeek at the beginning of the year.

14:57Now we're talking about something completely different. I think that's what's different about AI. It is the rate and pace of change is such that there is no concept in my mind of one winner or one loser. I think it's the concept of you're going to constantly see this leapfrogging because there's so much opportunity to take the technology in different directions. I'll bring up some of your competitors. So I'm glad you brought up Google because Google's been making some really incredible progress with TPU. They're on homegrown chip. And there have been reports recently that Google would actually sell that chip outside of its own stack, its own universe.

15:36There's obviously NVIDIA, which is the world leader in the GPU market. So you both make GPUs. You're both making accelerators. You're both trying to appeal to both the training and the inference crowd. From what I hear, everyone wants to make their own custom chip. There's also Amazon. They make Tranium and they work with Anthropic, who we'll hear from shortly. So the competitive landscape is pretty intense where you are. When you look at that cluster, no pun intended, who do you see as the most formidable competitor to you? You know, Lauren, we're kind of in this notion of a competition. And I'm in this notion of this is a huge market and you're going to need all kinds of chips.

16:19And I really believe that. I think if I talk about my vision of where this industry goes, you are going to need CPUs, you're going to need GPUs, you're going to need ASICs or custom chips, you're going to need all kinds of things. And I think the winners are those who can comfortably move across those domains and not feel like, hey, I've lost in that. So look, NVIDIA is a phenomenal company, really great company. So much respect for Google, so much respect for all of the hyperscalers that you mentioned. But at the end of the day, like technology needs choices and technology needs really the right chip for the right workload.

17:00And I think that's what we do at AMD. I think that our big differentiation in this space is, you know, we've been investing in high performance technologies for the last 10 plus years. And we have all of the elements that kind of bridge all of these pieces together. So it really is, you know, how do we grow the market capability as quickly as we can? And, you know, I am fortunate to be in the company of such great companies. I have to ask you about politics. You're spending more of your time in Washington, D.C. these days. And from what I understand, you interface quite a bit with the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick as well.

17:38I have a specific question for you, but first let me ask you this. How does your experience with this administration thus far, this presidential administration, compare to your relations with the last? Well, one of the things that has become incredibly clear and different is over the last five years, I think the recognition that semiconductors are so core to national policy has really intensified. Like it wasn't the same. It wasn't the same in the industry before. And I think that makes sense, right? I think chips are now so powerful and so capable, whether you're talking about national security or the economy or all of the intelligence out there, they're so important.

18:19I would say that what's been different about this administration is the speed. I think the administration has been extremely open and wanting to work with industry. You know, I very much appreciate Secretary Lutnik, Secretary Wright, you know, David Sachs is amazing, Michael Kratios. I think the administration truly understands that for this to work, there needs to be a really, really open dialogue between the administration and industry. So that access is really helpful. I think we also have to do our part as a technology industry and be helpful in trying to solve some of the issues that are critical from a sort of national policy standpoint.

19:01Things like manufacturing more in the United States. That is good for the country. That's good for our industry. That's something that we all have to step up to accelerate. Certainly a lot of conversation about export controls and other things as well. I asked you about export controls when we met in June, and you basically said export controls are a fact of life in your world. There was just some news yesterday that at least one of the bans, I think, that was going to happen on some of your chips being shipped to China has now been lifted. So you're able to apply for the licenses now in order to get your chips to China, as I understand it.

19:35Is that correct? Well, maybe I'll say it this way. So we actually have gotten some licenses to ship our chips to China. Those happened a few months ago. And there's active conversations about what should happen sort of longer term with export controls. But I think the ruling yesterday was relative to another aspect of it. So previously, AMD and NVIDIA had both agreed to pay the government a 15 % tax or fee on certain chips that would be shipping to China. So what is the status of that now? So we have licenses for some of those chips. For us, they're called the MI308 chips. It is a place where we work very closely with our customers and kind of see what their demand is.

20:17So we believe we'll be shipping some chips to China over time. But we have, you know, we've not been very specific about how much because we're really wanting to see how the entire dynamic plays out. It's a very dynamic, you know, kind of time. But will you be paying the 15 percent tax to the U.S. government on those chips? As we ship those chips, we will be. You will be still. OK, so yesterday's ruling didn't change that at all. That's correct. Okay. Really interesting. Okay. What else would you like to see come out of this current administration? It could be related to policies on your chips.

20:49It could be related to other policies you feel strongly about, you know, as this administration continues. Well, what I'm very passionate about is the idea that the U.S. should absolutely lead in AI. You know, right now the U.S. leads in, you know, sort of AI, you know, design and AI technology, AI software, the models, all of that. We should also lead with using AI within the United States. And one of the areas that this administration, President Trump, has been very forward-leaning on is his AI action plan that was unveiled during the summer. I think we talk about things and then we actually see things go into action.

21:27This administration has been really helpful in bringing some of that to action. So for example, we're talking about much deeper partnerships between the national labs and industry so that we can accelerate the usage of AI so that we can solve some of the important problems around science and research and all those areas. So those are areas that I'm very passionate about. They just announced this massive effort called the Genesis Mission. This is an area where, again, you're going to bring the best minds in the country together such that we're accelerating our own usage of AI. There is this divergence of opinions right now in the industry whether or not we should be shipping chips to China, even if it's not the best chips, even if it's the H20 or the MI308 in your case.

22:19And some people feel that it's a threat to national security to do that. Some people feel that by withholding our chips from China that potentially it would incentivize the country to build their own robust AI chips, which we know that China is doing. Where do you generally stand on that? I mean, I know you have chips to sell, but really, where do you stand on how much technology the U.S. should be shipping to China? Yeah, I think the way I think about this is, first and foremost, U.S. national security is the number one priority. And we are fully supportive of that. It is our duty to make sure that that's the case.

22:53And the fact that AI chips can really help from a security standpoint is clearly there. China is an important market. I would say when we look at the long arc, we want to have access to the Chinese market. There are a lot of smart people there. There's a lot of innovation happening there. We would want the entire world to be using the US AI stack because it's not just about, hey, we want to sell chips or NVIDIA wants to sell chips. It's really about we want the ecosystem to develop in such a way that we have access to the smartest people using USAI technology, because that just helps us ensure that we continue to stay at the bleeding edge.

23:34So I do think that the administration is thinking about these things very carefully, the idea that we must protect national security, but we also want US technology to continue to be the best in the world. And we're very much a part of that conversation. One more quick question for you. I asked you a version of this before. I said, what impresses you most as a leader and what irritates you most as a leader? And now I'm going to ask you a version of that about AI. What impresses you most about AI right now? And what irritates you most about AI right now? What impresses me the most about it is just how much potential it has and how quickly it gets better.

24:13What's an example of that? An example of that is when you're using it in your daily life, how often do you use it? I use it 10 times more today than I did even three months ago because it actually is helping me. It's helping me gather information. It's helping me get prepared for things. It's helping me in terms of what information that would be useful. But what irritates me is it's still not right enough at the time. And so it goes back to this notion of we are so early, but the potential is so clear. Like it is incredibly clear to me that we are going to be super surprised at what we use AI for.

24:55Forget about what we use AI for five years from now or 10 years from now, like one year from now, we're going to be super surprised at how much AI is a part of all of our daily lives, even though we think we're using it a lot today. Dr. Lisa Su, thank you so much for joining me. I just wanted to say this was a fantastic conversation and we really appreciate you kicking us off. So thank you. Thank you.

25:20Let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll discuss our key takeaways from the Lisa Su interview and other things that happened on the big interview stage.