Coinciding with the rollout of TIME’s Person of the Year issue, the “Year in TIME” event also featured a conversation with TIME’s 2024 “Athlete of the Year,” WNBA starSemiconductors, or chips, power computers, phones, cars, internet services, and artificial intelligence programs. Whether it’s sending emails, buying something online, streaming movies, chatting with an AI assistant—there’s a good chance that an AMD chip is behind some of the computing capabilities.
In the decade that Su, an engineer, has been at the helm of the computing juggernaut, the overall value of AMD surpassed rival Intel’s for the first time and its stock trades at a nearly 50-fold increase since she took over. While it’s unclear what President Donald Trump’s second term will mean for her industry, Su is cautiously optimistic, stating, “We are optimistic about business.”
However, Su was much more certain about the potential of AI to bring about transformative change in all aspects of society. She called AI “the most important technology that I’ve certainly seen in my career.” Even though AI is only in its “very, very beginning” stage, she predicted it will be “10 times more amazing 12 months from now.”When he asked her when they would be made in the U.S. she estimated three to five years.
Despite the rivalries, Su said “there are multiple winners in this market” and that semiconductor companies need one another: “We’re partnering with many of the companies in the semiconductor industry because no one company has all of the good ideas. It is a place where we absolutely have to come together. There are places where we’re going to compete, and there are places where we’re going to collaborate.”to do something and asked Su if she would share an example.