Nov. 13 (UPI) — Advanced Micro Devices said Wednesday roughly 4% of approximately 26,000 employees worldwide will be laid off. About 1,000 AMD workers will lose their jobs.
“As a part of aligning our resources with our largest growth opportunities, we are taking a number of targeted steps that will unfortunately result in reducing our global workforce by approximately 4%,” an AMD spokesperson said in a statement to CRN.
AMD added it is committed to “treating impacted employees with respect and helping them through this transition.”
The realignment seeks to capture more of the AI chip market currently dominated by Nvidia, which makes more than 80% of AI chip sales.
AMD expects $5 billion in AI chip sales for 2024, roughly a fifth of Nvidia’s $25.7 billion in such sales.
According to AMD CEO Lisa Su’s third-quarter earnings call, the company upgraded its graphics processing unit 2024 sales forecast after completing “some important customer milestones.” Those included optimizing chips for particular AI workloads and hitting reliability targets in data centers.
The third-quarter earnings report from AMD in late October revealed AMD’s fourth-quarter earnings forecast fell short of Wall Street economist expectations.
AMD is the second-largest maker of graphics processing units, after Nvidia.
Nvidia shares are up 200% for 2024 while AMD stock is down 5% on the year.