AMD Strengthens AI Ambitions With $4.9 B Acquisition of ZT Systems

AMD revealed today that it is acquiring ZT Systems, a New Jersey-based computing design and infrastructure provider for AI, in a deal valued at $4.9 billion. With this deal, AMD aims to upscale its AI production, incorporating ZT’s computing infrastructure and design business.

AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su said:

With our acquisition of ZT Systems, we take the next major step in our long-term AI strategy. This move will help us deliver leadership training and inferencing solutions that we can rapidly deploy at scale across cloud and enterprise customers.

Dr. Lisa Su

ZT Systems is a Critical Player in AI Infrastructure

ZT Systems’ experience with AI design, manufacturing, and deployment has made it one of the leading AI training and inference infrastructure providers. Its past collaborations with Nvidia and Intel in server and GPU solutions have also worked to its advantage, building its name in the AI industry.

AMD hopes that this new agreement with ZT will allow it to expand its design expertise and delve more into developing software and systems that could be embedded into its chips. 

The company expects to finalize the acquisition by the first half of 2025. Afterward, ZT Systems will join the AMD Data Center Solutions Group.

ZT CEO Frank Zhang will manage the manufacturing team, and ZT President Doug Huang will lead the design and customer enablement teams. Both will report to AMD Executive Vice President Forrest Norrod.

AMD also stated that it would find a partner to acquire ZT Systems’ US-based data center infrastructure manufacturing business by then.

Frank Zhang is Excited to Join AMD

Frank Zhang mentioned how ZT Systems has grown and evolved after being in computing for nearly three decades. He showed enthusiasm for joining AMD, stating that they will venture more into designing AI infrastructure. He agreed that AMD and ZT have the same goal and vision and will collaborate to develop computing infrastructure that powers leading global data centers.

Aside from its plans to acquire ZT, AMD has actively enriched its AI ecosystem and capabilities. In the last 12 months, it has worked to augment its in-house research by focusing on more R&D projects. Moreover, the chipmaker has invested an astounding $1 billion to build its AI software platform, hoping to outshine its biggest rival, Nvidia.