AMD Splashes Another $665M on Its AI Vision, Acquires European Specialist Silo AI
Companies come together to "shape the future of AI computing," says Silo AI co-founder and chief executive officer Peter Sarlin.
AMD has announced its intention to acquire Silo AI, described as "the largest private AI [Artificial Intelligence] lab in Europe," with an all-cash offer of around $665 million.
"Across every industry, enterprises are looking for fast and effective ways to develop and deploy AI solutions for their unique business needs," claims AMD's Vamsi Boppana, senior vice president of the company's Artificial Intelligence Group. "Silo AI's team of trusted AI experts and proven experience developing leadership AI models and solutions, including state-of-the-art LLMs [Large Language Models] built on AMD platforms, will further accelerate our AI strategy and advance the build-out and rapid implementation of AI solutions for our global customers."
"At Silo AI, our mission from the start has been to build an AI flagship company. Today's announcement is a logical next step in that pursuit as we join forces with AMD to shape the future of AI computing," adds Silo AI co-founder and chief executive officer Peter Sarlin, who will continue to lead the team as part of the AMD AI Group. "We have a well-established history of building successful AI products and delivering value to our customers. We look forward to becoming part of AMD to further scale our impact and develop enterprise solutions and AI models that address the most complex challenges with deploying AI at scale today."
The move comes as AI growth continues to gather pace, even as individual consumer-facing product launches like the Rabbit R1 "pocket companion" and Humane's AI Pin land flat. Interest in models small enough to run on-device has not removed the need for high-performance compute for both larger models and training of all models — and AMD is up against industry giant NVIDIA, currently the world's most valuable company, in offering solutions for that compute need.
The acquisition of Silo AI follows AMD's earlier absorption of Mipsology and Nod.ai, but eclipses the $125 million the company has invested in other AI companies over the past 12 months. The deal is expected to close in the second half of the year, pending the usual regulatory approvals, after which Sarlin will report to Boppana as the Silo AI team is brought under the AMD Artificial Intelligence Group umbrella.