Good News Everyone! AMD Dodges Export Controls With Profits!

A Calculated Risk

Good news everyone! Your old pal Professor Farnsworth here reporting live from the year 3024—wait no still 2024? Blast! My time machine's acting up again. Anyway Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) just released their first quarter earnings and surprisingly it wasn't a complete DOOMSDAY DEVICE scenario. They actually exceeded expectations. I mean not by much but still progress! They earned 96 cents per share when we expected 94 cents and made $7.44 billion in revenue against the predicted $7.13 billion. It's like discovering a new element except instead of naming it 'Farnsworthium,' they just made more money. Sigh.

Exporting... Problems?

Now here's where things get a bit…globally complicated. It appears that AMD is facing some shall we say 'regulatory headwinds' regarding AI chip exports. Turns out Uncle Sam has put the kibosh on some shipments to China. According to CEO Lisa Su this little hiccup could cost them a hefty $800 million in expenses and $700 million in lost revenue this quarter with a grand total of $1.5 billion by year's end. That’s enough to buy a whole lotta dark matter! Still Su remains optimistic. 'We believe they are more than offset by the powerful tailwinds from our leadership product portfolio,' she said. Brave words… or is she just trying to sell more chips?

Data Centers and GPU Glory

But here is a little bit of good news! AMD's data center segment driven by both Epyc processors and Instinct GPUs is thriving. Sales are up a whopping 57% year over year raking in $3.7 billion. It seems everyone wants those 'big GPUs' for building generative AI. It's a competitive field but AMD is holding its own against Nvidia. In fact the company did $5 billion in AI GPU sales in fiscal year 2024. Perhaps I should invest but I can't remember my PIN... To shreds you say?

Client and Gaming Segments

On the client and gaming front it's a mixed bag. The overall segment is up 28% to $2.9 billion thanks to a surge in laptop and PC chip sales (up 68%!). These Zen 5 chips are apparently all the rage. However gaming sales are down 30% with console chip revenue taking a hit. Perhaps people are finally realizing that video games are a foolish distraction from real science. Or maybe they're just playing mobile games I don't know.

Xilinx and Embedded

And then there's the embedded segment mostly sales from the Xilinx acquisition. It's down 3% to $823 million. Not a disaster but not exactly setting the world on fire. I must confess I still don't fully understand what Xilinx does. But then again I also invented the Smell O Scope so I'm not sure my opinion matters.

A Cautious Outlook

So there you have it. AMD is doing better than expected despite those pesky export controls. CEO Lisa Su is putting on a brave face and the data center business is booming. But who knows what the future holds? Maybe robot overlords will seize control of all chip production. Or maybe I'll finally invent a hat that makes you smarter. Either way stay tuned and remember: 'When will you learn that tinkering with the past has consequences?' (Oh wait that was me. Nevermind.)