Tuesday, October 10th 2023

AMD to Acquire Open-Source AI Software Expert Nod.ai

Press Release by
TheLostSwede
 Discuss (17 Comments)
AMD today announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire Nod.ai to expand the company's open AI software capabilities. The addition of Nod.ai will bring an experienced team that has developed an industry-leading software technology that accelerates the deployment of AI solutions optimized for AMD Instinct data center accelerators, Ryzen AI processors, EPYC processors, Versal SoCs and Radeon GPUs to AMD. The agreement strongly aligns with the AMD AI growth strategy centered on an open software ecosystem that lowers the barriers of entry for customers through developer tools, libraries and models.

"The acquisition of Nod.ai is expected to significantly enhance our ability to provide AI customers with open software that allows them to easily deploy highly performant AI models tuned for AMD hardware," said Vamsi Boppana, senior vice president, Artificial Intelligence Group at AMD. "The addition of the talented Nod.ai team accelerates our ability to advance open-source compiler technology and enable portable, high-performance AI solutions across the AMD product portfolio. Nod.ai's technologies are already widely deployed in the cloud, at the edge and across a broad range of end point devices today."
"At Nod.ai, we are a team of engineers focused on problem solving—quickly - and moving at pace in an industry of constant change to develop solutions for the next set of problems," said Anush Elangovan, co-founder and CEO, Nod.ai. "Our journey as a company has cemented our role as the primary maintainer and major contributor to some of the world's most important AI repositories, including SHARK, Torch-MLIR and OpenXLA/IREE code generation technology. By joining forces with AMD, we will bring this expertise to a broader range of customers on a global scale."

Nod.ai delivers optimized AI solutions to top hyperscalers, enterprises and startups. The compiler-based automation software capabilities of Nod.ai's SHARK software reduce the need for manual optimization and the time required to deploy highly performant AI models to run across a broad portfolio of data center, edge and client platforms powered by AMD CDNA, XDNA, RDNA and "Zen" architectures.
Source: AMD

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17 Comments on AMD to Acquire Open-Source AI Software Expert Nod.ai

#1
bug
But Nod were the bad guys, AMD should have acquired gdi.ai
Posted on Reply
#2
Daven
bugBut Nod were the bad guys, AMD should have acquired gdi.ai
Maybe they just need that Lisa Su lovin’ to right their wicked ways.
Posted on Reply
#3
DeathtoGnomes
bugBut Nod were the bad guys, AMD should have acquired gdi.ai
Lets just give a *nod* to Nod and call it a day.

Easier entry will give birth to more development opportunities down the road.
Posted on Reply
#4
unwind-protect
bugBut Nod were the bad guys, AMD should have acquired gdi.ai
What's the story here?
Posted on Reply
#5
evernessince
unwind-protectWhat's the story here?
It's a C&C Tiberian sun reference (Renegade as well given that game is set in the same universe).
Posted on Reply
#6
Random_User
evernessinceIt's a C&C Tiberian sun reference (Renegade as well given that game is set in the same universe).
Do you mean CABAL? Actually each faction had it's own AI. For GDI it was EVA, for Scrin it was Alien AI. But you forgot to mention, that CABAL eventually rebelled against NOD.
Posted on Reply
#7
goldman
Dear AMD, please aquire a QA firm so someone can test your drivers.
Posted on Reply
#8
Mysteoa
goldmanDear AMD, please aquire a QA firm so someone can test your drivers.
If it was that easy, we wouldn't have buggy games.
Posted on Reply
#9
Patriot
SHARK lets the 7900xtx match the 4090 in stable diffusion... AMD needs more like this.
Though acquisition vs partner....
Posted on Reply
#10
Random_User
MysteoaIf it was that easy, we wouldn't have buggy games.
The games would be easily less buggy if the publisher companies were about to reward the actual workers, the people who made these games, instead of pleasing the shareholders and chopping the hull of the studios, and hundreds of people for another multi-million large bonuses and golden parachutes.

How many dozens if not hundreds of great games, still have so many bugs left in them after the release and development ending? Just because publishing/parental companies forced developing studios to transfer all they power to DLC/MTA crap, instead of fixing these bugs. Not because it was very difficult, but quite the reverse- most bugs and issues these games have, could be solved within couple weeks or months, and they should've be. These publishers always had the needed finances.
But they didn't and the products left unfinished, switching to the development of yet another buggy and unfinished game. This is obvious bait and switch, and it baffles me, how millions of gamers, do reward this tactics every year, by buying and pre-ordering this garbage, granting these monstrosities of publishers to become even stronger. People should understand, no matter how much they like the games, and no matter how much they pay to reward the developers, the last won't see these money. Better patreon/crowdfund the studios, so they can go independent way.
And the biggest reward for studios should be the games being played decades after release. But none interested in this any more.

One example. Bethesda was always stretching on players on how they do great games. But truth is, the games were garbage, and should be avoided at all costs, until the bugs would be ironed out. But Bethesda being bethesda, stealing the merit of community modders and their titanic efforts to make the game great. It's them, devoted fans, who make the games look and feel great. Without these modders, all Bethesda games would be a dull hollow bugfest garbage.

The same goes to AMD, which should have made the top priority to hire as large and as competent amount of specialist to form bug free driver department, as soon as they got their first significant margins from consumer products. Instead they just narrowed their vision to enterprise/datacenter only, so they do not even need to bother with an average joe with their gaming radeon cards any longer.
Don't be fooled. These "gaming" press releases and events, and all that "frame generation" and other stuff, which we are witnessing now, is nothing but residues of bygone gaming era, and only as by-product of their datacenter business. And it exists only, because they "have to" (AMD just milk "regular consumers" while thy can and produce "gaming"/general purpose GPUs) to do something for public image, as the "consumer crowd" "forces" them to, in social networks and forums. As soon as the need would fade away, they will put all 100% of efforts towards enterprise branch.
If someone still has any doubts, look at nVidia and their business decisions, because AMD just follows them.

Excuse me, please, for an unnecessarily long and rubbish post/SPOILER]
Posted on Reply
#11
TechLurker
DavenMaybe they just need that Lisa Su lovin’ to right their wicked ways.
That and NOD's logo is halfway to AMD's anyway. Just need to replace the Scorpion tail with an AMD logo, and tweak the Red background into the Ryzen color gradient.
Posted on Reply
#12
ARF
goldmanDear AMD, please aquire a QA firm so someone can test your drivers.
I guess AMD's lowest priority is the consumer graphics department. :kookoo:
Today both nvidia and intel released new drivers, while AMD keeps its sleep, 23.9.3 is already 17-day old... :banghead:

This company is in a serious mess.
Posted on Reply
#13
Frick
Fishfaced Nincompoop
Random_UserThe games would be easily less buggy if the publisher companies were about to reward the actual workers, the people who made these games, instead of pleasing the shareholders and chopping the hull of the studios, and hundreds of people for another multi-million large bonuses and golden parachutes.

How many dozens if not hundreds of great games, still have so many bugs left in them after the release and development ending? Just because publishing/parental companies forced developing studios to transfer all they power to DLC/MTA crap, instead of fixing these bugs. Not because it was very difficult, but quite the reverse- most bugs and issues these games have, could be solved within couple weeks or months, and they should've be. These publishers always had the needed finances.
But they didn't and the products left unfinished, switching to the development of yet another buggy and unfinished game. This is obvious bait and switch, and it baffles me, how millions of gamers, do reward this tactics every year, by buying and pre-ordering this garbage, granting these monstrosities of publishers to become even stronger. People should understand, no matter how much they like the games, and no matter how much they pay to reward the developers, the last won't see these money. Better patreon/crowdfund the studios, so they can go independent way.
And the biggest reward for studios should be the games being played decades after release. But none interested in this any more.

One example. Bethesda was always stretching on players on how they do great games. But truth is, the games were garbage, and should be avoided at all costs, until the bugs would be ironed out. But Bethesda being bethesda, stealing the merit of community modders and their titanic efforts to make the game great. It's them, devoted fans, who make the games look and feel great. Without these modders, all Bethesda games would be a dull hollow bugfest garbage.

The same goes to AMD, which should have made the top priority to hire as large and as competent amount of specialist to form bug free driver department, as soon as they got their first significant margins from consumer products. Instead they just narrowed their vision to enterprise/datacenter only, so they do not even need to bother with an average joe with their gaming radeon cards any longer.
Don't be fooled. These "gaming" press releases and events, and all that "frame generation" and other stuff, which we are witnessing now, is nothing but residues of bygone gaming era, and only as by-product of their datacenter business. And it exists only, because they "have to" (AMD just milk "regular consumers" while thy can and produce "gaming"/general purpose GPUs) to do something for public image, as the "consumer crowd" "forces" them to, in social networks and forums. As soon as the need would fade away, they will put all 100% of efforts towards enterprise branch.
If someone still has any doubts, look at nVidia and their business decisions, because AMD just follows them.

Excuse me, please, for an unnecessarily long and rubbish post/SPOILER]
Why would independence mean less bugs? They still need to ship games, publisher or no. And buggy games is not a modern thing. Remember the 90's, when you got patches from gaming magazines?
Posted on Reply
#14
bug
FrickWhy would independence mean less bugs? They still need to ship games, publisher or no. And buggy games is not a modern thing. Remember the 90's, when you got patches from gaming magazines?
Well, if you're indie, presumably you don't have the same "release before X day, or else" pressure.
Also, yes, there were patches back then, too. But none of these unfinished product launches, because you can just make users download tens of GB as a day-0 patch.
I mean, think about Wing Commander series, one of the best series ever. How many patches, combined, did those games have?
Posted on Reply
#15
Frick
Fishfaced Nincompoop
bugWell, if you're indie, presumably you don't have the same "release before X day, or else" pressure.
Also, yes, there were patches back then, too. But none of these unfinished product launches, because you can just make users download tens of GB as a day-0 patch.
I mean, think about Wing Commander series, one of the best series ever. How many patches, combined, did those games have?
Well, those games were also so much smaller than modern games usually are.
Posted on Reply
#16
bug
FrickWell, those games were also so much smaller than modern games usually are.
Which why I didn't mention size. Just the number of patches. And for their time, those titles were really cutting edge, it's like there wasn't any logic there to patch.
Posted on Reply
#17
Random_User
FrickWhy would independence mean less bugs? They still need to ship games, publisher or no. And buggy games is not a modern thing. Remember the 90's, when you got patches from gaming magazines?


No offence, but.... Back in 90's games were less complex, and had up to three or five patches at most. And they did actually fix the games. That was degrading gradually, but these games are still playable up to this day. Look at Dark Reign 1, or C&C Tiberian sun, or any other old game of that period. They have huge playability. And that's considering they all were distributed on physical media.

Now show me how the modern digital only games got old, and how much of them people can play. The publisher has almost zero publishing costs, compared to the physical copies. No parer art and no discs, no shipment. They only generate the keys online and share them during transaction/leasing. Much like old pirates that sold the discs with keygens. And yet, they shut down the servers, and the games as old as five or less years become completely obsolete and unplayable altogether. Publishers are the tools of Shareholders. And both are parasitic entities.

Look how the games bloom, when the popular ones become freeware. The community doing all the job anyway, but now they get the freedom and tools. And I'd better fund the modders than a filthy publisher, which lead to the game is buggy in a first place.

AMD should have also let their drivers and software at least partially open, for people to find and fix the bugs, as AMD doesn't want to spend on it. Of course with supervision of them. The security concerns do not matter, as all the drivers and software are vulnerable anyway. The ones that wants to hack will do regardless.
The only reason, the drivers are locked, is due to company artificial segmentation limits over hardware, limiting the OC and them wanting to gouge people over inferior products. That's basic corporate thinking inherent to all companies.

The AI gives no benefits to the end user. It benefits the company. It benefits researchers. But it's a redundant part of the crystal at additional cost for average consumer, in consumer grade products. e.g how 7800XT has less CU for the sake of AI chip area integrated.
They invent the purposes, just like stupid frame generation, and other AI stuff, to justify it's presence in HW. Because of it being byproducts of enterprise grade HW in the first place. They can fuse it off, but it's the nonsense, and the area is taken away already. IMHO And the trend started with 2080Ti.
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