AMD and Cloud Computing
AMD is an acronym for Advanced Micro Devices Inc., a Californian based semiconductor developer.
Started in 1969, AMD has been at the center of almost all major computing hardware developments since.
Over the last four decades, AMD has grown to considerable heights, with latest revenue volumes hovering at about US$6 Billion and a workforce that is 15,000 strong.
AMD has total assets running into more than $11 billion, an equity base of almost $3 Billion and considerable interests in a number of other notable tech-firms, including a 21% stake in Spansion – a major supplier of flash memory.
AMD Products
While AMD is primarily a semiconductor maker—particularly noted for its computer microprocessors—the company also has interests in other areas, including in flash memory (through Spansion, where it has a significant stake) and in software development (mainly in the development of the software required to make its devices work.)
AMD Cloud Computing
AMD, being a powerhouse in microprocessor technologies, has been a major participant in the ongoing cloud computing development, which seems to be where the future of computing lies.
In cloud computing, companies and individuals rent server space in order to run various applications. Obviously, this would have been impossible in the days when Internet bandwidth was in scare supply, but it slowly became possible as connectivity rates and speeds went up.
It has even been argued that trends like cloud computing directly result from people having too much bandwidth on their hands.
While cloud computing reduces the computing power needed by end-users, it also astronomically increase the computing power needed by servers that are cloud-based.
With cloud computing, all computational activity is transferred to the server, therefore reducing the role of individual computers to simply serving as a connection to the Internet from where the user can gain access to the cloud.
In the meantime, computing power requirements for the servers on which the cloud runs increase astronomically, because (potentially) millions of people run millions of applications on it (again potentially) at the same time.
It is the need for microprocessors that can meet these immense power requirements that have given semiconductor developers like AMD their opening to profit from this trend.
AMD’s response to the needs raised by cloud computing has been particularly remarkable keeping in mind that the immense need for computing power presented by cloud computing has been ‘user-driven,’ rather than ‘microprocessor-developer driven,’ as was the case with previous major changes in computing power needs.
In previous instances, it was usually the microprocessor developers who were always ahead of users—giving users added computing power and allowing them to figure out what to do with it.
In the case of cloud computing, however, it is the users who happened upon the need for extra computing power, leaving it to the microprocessor developers like AMD to figure out how to meet that need. AMD responded to this challenge with products like their Opetron microprocessor, which has shown good efficacy at powering cloud computing operations.
The Future of Cloud Computing at AMD
AMD’s ‘Fusion’ microprocessor technology promises to be the next big thing in cloud computing, even prompting some enthusiasts to predict that this technology will allow applications like gaming to move from desktops to the clouds.
Of course, this is not to say that gaming applications cannot already run via cloud computing (they can,) but rather to appreciate that AMD’s ‘Fussion’ microprocessor technology is likely to transform the cloud from the corporate dominated place it is today, into a place where individual consumers can also join the party.
Category: AMD
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