Key Points
- AMD CEO Lisa Su said the company is still hiring many people, despite the rise of AI.
- The company is prioritizing “AI forward” candidates who embrace the technology.
- This view contrasts with a recent statement from a Federal Reserve official who said AI is slowing hiring.
- AMD uses AI internally to design, manufacture, and test its chips. Su believes AI is “augmenting” employee productivity, not replacing jobs.
The rise of artificial intelligence has many people worried about their jobs, but the CEO of chipmaker AMD says the technology has not slowed down hiring at her company. In fact, Lisa Su said on Tuesday that AMD is growing “very significantly” and hiring “lots of people.” The catch? They are hiring different people.
“We’re hiring people who are AI forward,” Su told CNBC from the CES conference in Las Vegas. She explained that candidates who “truly embrace” the technology are the ones receiving job offers.
AMD is right at the center of the AI boom. The company designs powerful GPU chips needed to train and run large AI models, putting it in direct competition with market leader Nvidia.
To stay competitive, AMD is using AI in every part of its own business, from designing new chips to manufacturing and testing them. This makes having AI skills a top priority for new hires.
Su’s comments offer a different perspective from that of some economists. Just a day earlier, Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said that AI is causing big companies to slow down their hiring.
But according to Su, AI is a tool that helps employees, not a replacement for them. “I would say that AI is augmenting our capabilities,” she said. “It’s not replacing people, it’s actually just augmenting our productivity.”
As of December 2024, AMD had about 28,000 employees. If Su’s vision holds, the future of work at companies like AMD isn’t about fewer jobs, but about jobs that require a whole new set of AI-related skills.
