At CES 2026, AMD used its headline keynote to position itself as a central player in the ongoing Artificial Intelligence boom, arguing it can compete not just with long-time rival Intel but also with Nvidia, which the article notes is now the world’s most valuable company thanks to its data center GPU business. Chief executive Lisa Su highlighted that AMD’s Helios rack system, introduced in 2025, and its Epyc CPU line are already used by every major Artificial Intelligence company, and framed the show as a chance to prove AMD’s relevance at a moment when Nvidia offered no new GPU hardware beyond teasing its forthcoming Rubin family. Su anchored the presentation around the idea of “Artificial Intelligence for everyone,” with new PC-focused processors waiting in the wings.
Su leaned heavily on big-picture predictions and visual charts to match the spectacle that now surrounds Artificial Intelligence announcements. She told the audience “you ain’t seen nothing yet” and presented a forecast in which Artificial Intelligence would go from 1 billion active users to 5 billion active users within 5 years, although the article notes she did not explain the source of those figures and points out that at least one 2030 estimate comes in below one billion users. To underscore AMD’s role as a compute provider, Su highlighted the Helios rack again on stage, describing it as a “monster of a rack” with a “double-wide design” co-developed with Meta and saying it weighed 7,000 pounds, or “more than two compact cars.” She also touted a public-private research initiative called the Genesis Mission, with White House science advisor Michael Kratsios invoking an “Artificial Intelligence race” that the United States aims to “win,” even as the article notes he provided few specifics about what such a race entails.
The keynote also showcased AMD’s deepening ties with OpenAI, which has become synonymous with large-scale Artificial Intelligence rollouts. OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman joined Su on stage and said “I would love to have a GPU running in the background for every single person in the world,” explaining why he is constantly asking AMD for “more compute.” The keynote referenced an October 2025 report that OpenAI is making an investment worth “tens of billions of dollars in revenue” in AMD, relying on the company to deliver six gigawatts of Artificial Intelligence infrastructure in the coming years under a deal that could give OpenAI up to 10 percent of AMD. On the consumer side, AMD’s new Ryzen Artificial Intelligence 400 chips were presented as an upgrade to the Ryzen Artificial Intelligence 300 series announced in 2024, with AMD saying the new processors will allow for 1.3x faster multitasking and are 1.7x faster at “content creation” than competing products. Despite the bold forecasts, heavyweight partnerships, and a parade of guest executives talking about Artificial Intelligence transforming sectors from healthcare to spaceflight, the article notes that investors appeared unmoved, with AMD shares down slightly earlier in the day and then flat in after-hours trading.
