AMD acquires Silo AI in $665 million deal to boost its AI solutions pedigree — deal should be wrapped up later this year

AMD
(Image credit: AMD)

AMD has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Silo AI for $665 million in cash. Silo AI specializes in the integration of AI capabilities into solutions used by businesses, and its takeover will help AMD to significantly boost its AI capabilities and deliver end-to-end AI solutions comprising AI models, software, and hardware, for big customers. The deal is anticipated to be finalized in the latter half of 2024.

Silo AI is renowned for its team of AI scientists and engineers who specialize in creating customized AI models and solutions, and their expertise spans various sectors, including cloud computing and embedded systems. The company has been instrumental in helping customers like Allianz, Philips, Rolls-Royce, and Unilever to quickly integrate AI solutions designed to meet the unique needs of each enterprise into their products and services that cover a wide array of markets. The company is also known for developing open-source multilingual large language models (LLMs) like Poro and Viking.

Also, Silo AI has collaborated with institutions to optimize AI model training on LUMI, Europe's fastest supercomputer, which is powered by over 12,000 AMD Instinct MI250X GPUs. This collaboration has resulted in the development of advanced open-source models for European languages.

The acquisition of Silo AI is a strategic move for AMD as it immediately enhances its AI capabilities and accelerates its AI strategy as with an experienced team it will be easier for the company to land customers in the enterprise space. Essentially, it will now be able to offer not only hardware, but also software for enterprise customers, which is a good way to compete against Nvidia.

"At Silo AI, our mission from the start has been to build an AI flagship company. Today's announcement is a logical next step in that pursuit as we join forces with AMD to shape the future of AI computing," said Peter Sarlin, CEO and co-founder of Silo AI. "We have a well-established history of building successful AI products and delivering value to our customers. We look forward to becoming part of AMD to further scale our impact and develop enterprise solutions and AI models that address the most complex challenges with deploying AI at scale today."

Silo AI's CEO and co-founder, Peter Sarlin, will remain at the helm of the Silo AI team within the AMD Artificial Intelligence Group led by AMD's senior vice president, Vamsi Boppana.

Over the past year, AMD has invested over $125 million in a dozen AI companies and acquired Mipsology and Nod.ai to expand its AI ecosystem and support its partners.

"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," said Vamsi Boppana, senior vice president of the Artificial Intelligence Group at AMD.

Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

  • JTWrenn
    I don't see why any European company would allow a US company that is already a leader in AI to buy up an AI startup from their country. I just don't see how this makes it through.

    It's a bit of a mixed bag for the rest of the world. AMD being a more even match for NVIDIA would likely be a good thing for the world, but having more than 3 competitors in the industry would be an even bigger boon.

    Very mixed on this, but I just doubt it will happen.
    Reply
  • dalek1234
    JTWrenn said:
    I don't see why any European company would allow a US company that is already a leader in AI to buy up an AI startup from their country. ...
    Did you mean to say "European country" instead of "European company"?

    Countries' regulations apply to publicly trading companies. Silo AI is private company. This "deal" already went through. The rest is just a paperwork to finalize things.
    Reply
  • JTWrenn
    dalek1234 said:
    Did you mean to say "European country" instead of "European company"?

    Countries' regulations apply to publicly trading companies. Silo AI is private company. This "deal" already went through. The rest is just a paperwork to finalize things.
    I meant any European country yes. No clue how I did that.

    It passed board approval but not anti trust. So it could be blocked ala Arm Nvidia.

    Anti trust applies to all companies, otherwise the Nvidia purchase of Arm (which was private at the time) would not have been blocked by the EU/UK
    Reply