AMD Acquires Silo AI for $665M to Bolster AI Capabilities
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) announced today its intention to acquire Silo AI Oy, a prominent artificial intelligence developer based in Finland. The all-cash transaction is valued at approximately $665 million. The acquisition is expected to be finalized later this year, with Silo AI set to integrate into AMD's Artificial Intelligence Group. This division is notably responsible for the MI300 machine learning accelerator series, which competes directly with Nvidia Corp.'s leading graphics cards.
Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) announced today its intention to acquire Silo AI Oy, a prominent artificial intelligence developer based in Finland. The all-cash transaction is valued at approximately $665 million. The acquisition is expected to be finalized later this year, with Silo AI set to integrate into AMD's Artificial Intelligence Group. This division is notably responsible for the MI300 machine learning accelerator series, which competes directly with Nvidia Corp.'s leading graphics cards.
Silo AI is renowned for its AI development and deployment services targeted at large enterprises. The company assists businesses in identifying tasks that can be automated using AI. Following this, Silo AI develops custom language models tailored to perform these tasks efficiently. Additionally, the company creates other neural networks, such as computer vision algorithms, which are used to detect faulty components on production lines.
Building new AI models is just one aspect of Silo AI's capabilities. The company also manages the technical integration of neural networks with an organization's existing workloads and ensures their maintenance over time. To date, Silo AI has completed over 200 AI projects for major corporations such as Allianz SE, Nokia Corp., and Siemens AG.
Apart from its core service offerings, Silo AI provides several prepackaged AI tools under the brand name Silo OS. This suite includes development tools that facilitate enterprises' internal machine learning projects and AI applications for specific use cases like document search.
In the previous year, Silo AI expanded its software portfolio by introducing two open-source large language models. The first model, Viking, is capable of understanding English, Nordic languages, and several programming syntaxes. In November, Silo AI unveiled a more advanced language model called Poro, which boasts a similar feature set but with about five times the number of parameters.
The acquisition of Silo AI will provide AMD not only with a robust software portfolio but also with a team of 300 machine learning experts. Notably, about one-third of these professionals hold doctorate degrees. According to AMD, Silo AI's team will continue developing open-source large language models like Viking and Poro post-acquisition.
AMD sees this acquisition as an opportunity to enhance the customer experience for enterprises purchasing its processors. Building a large-scale AI cluster involving hundreds of AI chips requires substantial time and effort. By leveraging Silo AI's expertise, AMD aims to streamline this process for its customers.
Vamsi Boppana, Senior Vice President of AMD's Artificial Intelligence Group, stated, "Silo AI's team of trusted AI experts and proven experience developing leadership AI models and solutions, including state-of-the-art LLMs 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."
Previously, AMD acquired Nod.ai, officially known as Nod Inc., the developer of an open-source AI tool named SHARK. This software is designed to enhance the speed at which AI models can perform inference tasks. SHARK promises to deliver up to three times better inference performance than competing tools like TensorFlow.
With this acquisition, AMD is poised to significantly strengthen its AI capabilities and expand its footprint in the AI development space. The integration of Silo AI's advanced AI tools and expert team will undoubtedly play a crucial role in advancing AMD's mission to provide cutting-edge AI solutions to its global customer base.