Lisa Su

Who they are

Lisa Su is Chair and CEO of AMD — an MIT PhD in Electrical Engineering who joined AMD in 2012 as SVP/GM and reversed a near-bankruptcy into $34.6 billion in full-year 2025 revenue.

Person

Lisa Su joined AMD in January 2012 when the company was a publicly traded chipmaker facing serious competitive pressure — she came in as SVP and General Manager of Global Business Units, became COO within two years, and was named President and CEO in 2014. Before AMD, she spent the bulk of her career at IBM, rising to VP of the Semiconductor R&D Center and earlier serving as a Technical Assistant to CEO Lou Gerstner — a role that gave her a C-suite view of a technology giant during one of its most consequential decades. She also held senior roles at Texas Instruments and served as SVP, CTO, and SVP/GM of Networking and Multimedia at Freescale Semiconductor. The through-line is deep technical credibility applied at scale: each move put her closer to the intersection of chip architecture and business strategy. She earned her BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering at MIT between 1986 and 1994, with doctoral research focused on semiconductors. On LinkedIn and in public talks — including a Stanford GSB session on chips, curiosity, and chance, the AI Action Summit in 2025, and a U.S. Senate Commerce Committee hearing on AI leadership — she speaks consistently about AI infrastructure, semiconductor innovation, U.S. competitiveness, and bringing people from diverse backgrounds into STEM.

Company

AMD's most recent major move — announced May 21, 2026 — is a commitment of more than $10 billion in Taiwan ecosystem investments to accelerate AI infrastructure and ramp production of next-generation EPYC 'Venice' processors on TSMC's 2nm technology. That followed a February 2026 multi-year, multi-generation partnership with Meta to deploy up to 6 gigawatts of AMD Instinct GPUs for AI infrastructure, with shipments starting in the second half of 2026, and a similar multi-gigawatt deal signed with OpenAI in 2025 to supply 6 gigawatts of Instinct GPUs, starting with 1 gigawatt in H2 2026. AMD reported record full-year 2025 revenue of $34.6 billion, with data center revenue hitting $5.38 billion in Q4 2025 alone, driven by EPYC server processors and Instinct GPUs. The company also divested ZT Systems' data center infrastructure manufacturing business to Sanmina in October 2025, sharpened its AI-hardware focus at CES 2026 with the MI455X GPU and Helios AI rack system, and previewed the MI500 series — targeting up to 1000x AI performance improvement over the MI300X — for a 2027 launch.

Market

AMD competes primarily against Nvidia in the AI GPU and data center market, where Nvidia holds commanding share; AMD holds roughly 35% of the global GPU market in 2026 and is pressing its cost-effective Instinct GPU line as an alternative. Intel and Qualcomm are secondary CPU competitors, while TSMC and Samsung factor into the supply-chain and process-technology dimension. The industry is shaped by two overlapping pressures: surging AI infrastructure investment that is accelerating demand for advanced chips, and U.S. export controls on advanced AI chips to China — which cost AMD an $800 million charge in 2025 and continue to constrain its addressable market into 2026.

Network

No edge data was returned in the claims. Notable named relationships that surface from public engagements include a deep co-development partnership with Microsoft on AI hardware, a multi-gigawatt supply partnership with Meta, and the joint venture with Cisco and HUMAIN to build AI infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. KC McClure joined AMD's board in February 2026, and Jean Hu was appointed Chief Accounting Officer in 2025 following Philip Carter's departure to Skyworks Solutions.

KC McClure· AMD Board Director (appointed February 2026)
Jean Hu· Chief Accounting Officer, AMD (appointed 2025)
Philip Carter· Former Chief Accounting Officer, AMD; CFO at Skyworks Solutions

How they likely show up

Long tenure at AMD (2012–present, through a near-bankruptcy and into a $34.6 billion revenue year) → thinks in multi-year cycles; unlikely to be moved by short-term quarterly framing.
Progressed from SVP/GM → COO → President/CEO → Chair/CEO within a single company → deep institutional knowledge; prefers to own the full problem rather than manage slices of it.
PhD research focused on semiconductors, followed by VP of Semiconductor R&D at IBM → her technical instincts are grounded in the physics, not just the market; she can spot hand-waving quickly.
Active LinkedIn poster on AI infrastructure, strategic partnerships, and U.S. competitiveness — with posts tied to specific announcements (Meta deal, Senate testimony, SC24) → comfortable being a public face; communicates with specificity, not generality.
Testified before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee on AI leadership in 2025 and spoke at Davos, the AI Action Summit, and Stanford GSB → operates comfortably at the policy and geopolitical level, not just the product level.
Led AMD through a workforce reduction and pivot away from gaming to AI and data centers in 2025, while continuing net hiring → willing to make hard structural bets and stay the course through transition.

Conversation tips

→ Reference a specific technical milestone — the EPYC 'Venice' ramp on TSMC 2nm or the MI500 preview — rather than generic chip-industry trends; she engages with the specifics, not the category.
→ Ask about the policy dimension: her Senate testimony and Davos appearances show she's actively shaping the U.S. AI competitiveness conversation, and she has strong views on it.
→ If you want to discuss the Nvidia rivalry, come with a crisp angle — market share data, a specific workload, or a customer dynamic — not a broad 'how do you compete with Nvidia?' opener.
→ Don't underestimate the turnaround arc as a conversational thread: the move from near-bankruptcy in 2014 to $34.6 billion in 2025 is a point of pride and she has talked about it publicly in detail.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the May 2026 Taiwan investment announcement — more than $10 billion committed to TSMC 2nm production of EPYC 'Venice' is a specific, high-stakes bet on where the AI infrastructure buildout is heading, and she just made it publicly.
Reference the back-to-back hyperscaler deals: a multi-gigawatt Instinct GPU supply agreement with OpenAI in 2025 and a second with Meta in February 2026 — the sequencing signals a deliberate strategy to position AMD as the second-source of record for frontier AI training, worth digging into.
Bring up her Senate Commerce Committee testimony on AI leadership — she appeared in 2025 to discuss U.S. competitiveness; it signals she's thinking about the regulatory and geopolitical frame around AMD's business, not just the product roadmap.

Discovery questions

The MI500 preview at CES 2026 claimed up to 1000x AI performance improvement over the MI300X — how does AMD think about setting those kinds of public benchmarks when the product is still a year out?
The ZT Systems divestiture to Sanmina in October 2025 came less than a year after the acquisition closed — what did AMD learn about what it actually needs to own in the AI infrastructure stack versus what it should partner or divest?
U.S. export controls on advanced AI chips to China cost AMD $800 million in charges in 2025 — how is AMD structuring its forward product and customer strategy to reduce that regulatory exposure without ceding the market to competitors?

Avoid

Don't frame the conversation around AMD 'catching up' to Nvidia — she has been running a deliberate multi-year strategy, not a reactive race, and the framing will land as uninformed given the record 2025 results and the hyperscaler supply deals she's already signed.

Make it yours