The Silicon Valley-based firm has been fiddling about with photonic integrated circuits since 2023, working alongside AMD and the likes of GlobalFoundries to ship out IP that uses light rather than electrons to shift data around.
AMD senior vice president Brian Amick blogged that the Enosemi crew “will help AMD immediately scale its ability to support and develop a variety of photonics and co-packaged optics solutions across next-gen AI systems.”
For those who came in late, photonics is the shiny new thing in semiconductors. It uses beams of light instead of sluggish electrons to shuttle bits and bytes across chips, promising ludicrous speeds, beefier bandwidth, and far better power savings. It’s already creeping into network switches and chiplet connections, and might one day boot traditional electronics into the bin.
Other tech outfits have been hopping on the photonics bandwagon lately, but AMD clearly reckons now’s the time to buy some expertise outright. Rival Nvidia has already thrown together a 400 terabyte-per-second switch based on the stuff, and plans to bolt more light-powered kit into its AI machinery.
In a press release, AMD declared: “This acquisition strengthens AMD’s position as a provider of full-stack AI solutions, combining its leading CPUs, GPUs, and adaptive SoCs with enhanced networking, software, and system integration expertise.”
Troubled Chipzilla, Arm, and Nvidia have all been making noise about their ambitions to control the whole datacentre stack, and AMD is clearly not keen on being left behind. It’s already snapped up ZT Systems, Mipsology, and Silo AI, and signed on for various partnerships to stitch together its own full-service offering.
There’s also a whiff of geopolitical posturing in the move. Chinese researchers have reportedly doubled US efforts in photonics over the past five years, sparking fears that the Middle Kingdom could leapfrog Western tech entirely. AMD’s latest play suggests it has no intention of letting either China or Nvidia outshine it on the AI battlefield.
