AMD goes all-in on being a data centre designer by purchasing ZT Systems for $4.9 billion

A photo of a large computer centre, showing clean white floors and many cables hanging from the ceiling — (Image credit: AMD | ZT Systems)

It won't have escaped your notice that in recent years, Nvidia has been transitioning away from being 'just' a chip designer into a fully-fledged systems integration company. If you want a massive data centre or a host of AI servers, Nvidia will design and build the whole thing for you. And now it seems AMD is getting in on the action having finalised a near-five billion dollar deal for ZT Systems, a company that designs and makes—yes, you've guessed it—data, cloud, and AI centres.

AMD announced its closing of the purchase deal today (via GlobalWire), having first made its intentions publicly known in August of last year. The acquisition, worth $4.9 billion in cash and stocks, will certainly make a bit of a dent in AMD's financials, but there's no doubt that it'll be worth every cent if the AI market continues to grow as expected.

In FY 2024, AMD pulled in revenues of $12.6 billion with its data centre division, accounting for almost 50% of its entire revenue that year. It's also AMD's second most profitable sector, with an operating margin of roughly 27%—more than double that of its Client and Gaming sectors.

Now, I reckon I can scrap together $14.52—maybe even a whole 20 bucks—to acquire something, so AMD better watch out!

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Nick, gaming, and computers all first met in the early 1980s. After leaving university, he became a physics and IT teacher and started writing about tech in the late 1990s. That resulted in him working with MadOnion to write the help files for 3DMark and PCMark. After a short stint working at Beyond3D.com, Nick joined Futuremark (MadOnion rebranded) full-time, as editor-in-chief for its PC gaming section, YouGamers. After the site shutdown, he became an engineering and computing lecturer for many years, but missed the writing bug. Cue four years at TechSpot.com covering everything and anything to do with tech and PCs. He freely admits to being far too obsessed with GPUs and open-world grindy RPGs, but who isn't these days?

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