AMD (NASDAQ:AMD) shares rose fractionally on Monday as AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su and Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Reuters the two entities were coming together in a $1B partnership aimed at developing supercomputers.
The Dept. of Energy is creating two supercomputers that will go after large scientific issues, including cancer treatments and nuclear power, with Wright telling the news outlet that the systems would “supercharge” advances in these areas.
“We’ve made great progress, but plasmas are unstable, and we need to recreate the center of the sun on Earth,” Wright told the news outlet. “We’re going to get just massively faster progress using the computation from these AI systems that I believe will have practical pathways to harness fusion energy in the next two or three years.”
Wright, a self-described “energy nerd,” added that he hopes there will be advances that turn most cancers “into manageable conditions,” instead of the “ultimate death sentences” they are today.
The first computer, known as Lux, will be built and come online in roughly six months and will use AMD’s MI355X AI accelerators. It is being co-developed by AMD, HP Enterprise (HPE), Oracle (ORCL) Cloud Infrastructure and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The second computer, known as Discovery, will use AMD’s MI430 series of AI accelerators and will also be co-developed by AMD, HP Enterprise, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It is slated to be delivered by 2028 and come online by 2029.