Monday, August 19th 2024
AMD Acquires Hyperscale Solutions Provider ZT Systems
AMD today announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire ZT Systems, a leading provider of AI infrastructure for the world's largest hyperscale computing companies. The strategic transaction marks the next major step in AMD's AI strategy to deliver leadership AI training and inferencing solutions based on innovating across silicon, software and systems. ZT Systems' extensive experience designing and optimizing cloud computing solutions will also help cloud and enterprise customers significantly accelerate the deployment of AMD-powered AI infrastructure at scale. AMD has agreed to acquire ZT Systems in a cash and stock transaction valued at $4.9 billion, inclusive of a contingent payment of up to $400 million based on certain post-closing milestones. AMD expects the transaction to be accretive on a non-GAAP basis by the end of 2025.
"Our acquisition of ZT Systems is the next major step in our long-term AI strategy to deliver leadership training and inferencing solutions that can be rapidly deployed at scale across cloud and enterprise customers," said AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. "ZT adds world-class systems design and rack-scale solutions expertise that will significantly strengthen our data center AI systems and customer enablement capabilities. This acquisition also builds on the investments we have made to accelerate our AI hardware and software roadmaps. Combining our high-performance Instinct AI accelerator, EPYC CPU, and networking product portfolios with ZT Systems' industry-leading data center systems expertise will enable AMD to deliver end-to-end data center AI infrastructure at scale with our ecosystem of OEM and ODM partners."
Headquartered in Secaucus, New Jersey, ZT Systems has more than 15 years of experience designing and deploying data center AI compute and storage infrastructure at scale for the largest global cloud companies. ZT Systems' design, integration, manufacturing and deployment capabilities have made them one of the leading providers of AI training and inference infrastructure.
"We are excited to join AMD and together play an even larger role designing the AI infrastructure that is defining the future of computing," said Frank Zhang, CEO of ZT Systems. "For almost 30 years we have evolved our business to become a leading provider of critical computing and storage infrastructure for the world's largest cloud companies. AMD shares our vision for the important role our technology and our people play designing and building the computing infrastructure powering the largest data centers in the world."
Following transaction close, ZT Systems will join the AMD Data Center Solutions Business Group. ZT CEO Frank Zhang will lead the manufacturing business and ZT President Doug Huang will lead the design and customer enablement teams, both reporting to AMD Executive Vice President and General Manager Forrest Norrod. AMD will seek a strategic partner to acquire ZT Systems' industry-leading U.S.-based data center infrastructure manufacturing business.
The acquisition of ZT Systems marks the latest in a series of investments by AMD to significantly strengthen the company's AI capabilities. In the last 12 months, in addition to increasing organic R&D activities, AMD has invested more than $1 billion to expand the AMD AI ecosystem and strengthen the company's AI software capabilities.
Additional Transaction Details
The transaction has been unanimously approved by the AMD Board of Directors. The acquisition is currently expected to close in the first half of 2025, subject to certain regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
Conference Call and Webcast Details
AMD will hold a conference call for the financial community at 8:30 am EDT today to discuss the transaction. AMD will provide a real-time audio broadcast of the teleconference on the Investor Relations page of its website at ir.amd.com. The webcast will be available for 12 months after the conference call.
Advisors
Citi is acting as exclusive financial advisor to AMD and Latham & Watkins LLP is serving as its legal advisor. Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC is acting as exclusive financial advisor to ZT Systems and Paul, Weiss, LLP is serving as its legal advisor.
"Our acquisition of ZT Systems is the next major step in our long-term AI strategy to deliver leadership training and inferencing solutions that can be rapidly deployed at scale across cloud and enterprise customers," said AMD Chair and CEO Dr. Lisa Su. "ZT adds world-class systems design and rack-scale solutions expertise that will significantly strengthen our data center AI systems and customer enablement capabilities. This acquisition also builds on the investments we have made to accelerate our AI hardware and software roadmaps. Combining our high-performance Instinct AI accelerator, EPYC CPU, and networking product portfolios with ZT Systems' industry-leading data center systems expertise will enable AMD to deliver end-to-end data center AI infrastructure at scale with our ecosystem of OEM and ODM partners."
"We are excited to join AMD and together play an even larger role designing the AI infrastructure that is defining the future of computing," said Frank Zhang, CEO of ZT Systems. "For almost 30 years we have evolved our business to become a leading provider of critical computing and storage infrastructure for the world's largest cloud companies. AMD shares our vision for the important role our technology and our people play designing and building the computing infrastructure powering the largest data centers in the world."
Following transaction close, ZT Systems will join the AMD Data Center Solutions Business Group. ZT CEO Frank Zhang will lead the manufacturing business and ZT President Doug Huang will lead the design and customer enablement teams, both reporting to AMD Executive Vice President and General Manager Forrest Norrod. AMD will seek a strategic partner to acquire ZT Systems' industry-leading U.S.-based data center infrastructure manufacturing business.
The acquisition of ZT Systems marks the latest in a series of investments by AMD to significantly strengthen the company's AI capabilities. In the last 12 months, in addition to increasing organic R&D activities, AMD has invested more than $1 billion to expand the AMD AI ecosystem and strengthen the company's AI software capabilities.
Additional Transaction Details
The transaction has been unanimously approved by the AMD Board of Directors. The acquisition is currently expected to close in the first half of 2025, subject to certain regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.
Conference Call and Webcast Details
AMD will hold a conference call for the financial community at 8:30 am EDT today to discuss the transaction. AMD will provide a real-time audio broadcast of the teleconference on the Investor Relations page of its website at ir.amd.com. The webcast will be available for 12 months after the conference call.
Advisors
Citi is acting as exclusive financial advisor to AMD and Latham & Watkins LLP is serving as its legal advisor. Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC is acting as exclusive financial advisor to ZT Systems and Paul, Weiss, LLP is serving as its legal advisor.
11 Comments on AMD Acquires Hyperscale Solutions Provider ZT Systems
Nvidia talking every day all day about AI.
In the end it seems that only Intel cares about the retail market because it is getting beaten ugly in servers.
Let me be clear here, I have NO idea what ZT Systems does, but I guess 4.9 billions valuation means they are doing big things for servers.
@Daven Love your post, but what I am saying is that Nvidia and AMD seems to be focusing too much on servers. On the other hand Intel seems to focus on manufacturing, obviously, but when it is about products they do seem to care about their performance in retail market. They need it more that the other two. It was the other way around when Intel was totally controlling OEMs and the server market, with AMD focusing more on retail.
There are only so many wafers that they can access to make chips with, they have to allocate those to the most profitable segments.
Im sure they prefer to sell a CCX in and Epyc then in a Ryzen.
Old AMD wasted loads of money building fabs and buying ATI at a time intel was making a strong comeback with the core line after the pentium 4 disaster.
They had a big debt burden during the financial collapse one they couldn't handle and had to shed their fabs to clear those.
At the moment no one is demanding their money from AMD on the contrary people are stuffing Lisa's pockets if she dares come out in public.
I'm certain AMD shares are going to be seeing a significant price correction like Intel had a couple of weeks ago but that shouldn't mean they would get in trouble like they did in the later noughties.
their investments have been within reason.
Intel is in 'trouble' because they have been spurred on by government to spend spend spend in their localities with the promise of subsidies
And didn't show stupid profit numbers like nvidia did which for some reason some expected they would.