新闻稿称，AMD将以现金+股票混合的形式支付这49亿美元。根据媒体的说法，现金将占75%，另外25%则通过股票交易。这也是AMD在过去一年中对ZT投资10亿美元的补充。① AMD announced on its official website that it has signed a final agreement to acquire ZT Systems for a transaction price of $4.9 billion; ② Analysis suggests that this move is to expand its AI chip and hardware product portfolio, and to compete with the leading company in this field, Nvidia.
On August 20th, Cailianshe reported that before the US stock market opened on Monday, August 19th, the US chip giant $Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.US)$ announced on its official website that it has signed a final agreement to acquire ZT Systems for a transaction price of $4.9 billion.
Source: AMD official website
The press release stated that AMD will pay this $4.9 billion in the form of a cash and stock mix. According to reports, cash will account for 75%, and the remaining 25% will be paid through stock transactions. This is also a supplement to AMD's $1 billion investment in ZT over the past year.
ZT Systems was founded in 1994 and is a supplier that provides artificial intelligence (AI) and general computation-based design, including high-performance computing (HPC) servers, storage servers, etc. It mainly provides customized equipment for large-scale cloud computing companies and enterprise customers.
Media analysis suggests that AMD's decision to acquire ZT is to expand its AI chip and hardware product portfolio and compete with leaders in this field. $NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ Due to the demand for AI computing, technology companies need to connect thousands of chips to form clusters to obtain the required data processing power.
In June of this year, ZT Systems launched the ACX200 platform that uses the GB200 Grace Blackwell super chip. This is a liquid-cooled rack-mounted integrated server platform that achieves high-speed interconnection between GPUs through NVLink. In this field, ZT competes with Supermicro.$Super Micro Computer (SMCI.US)$"AI systems are our top strategic priority," said Su Zifeng, adding that ZT Systems' engineers, after joining AMD, will be able to test and launch the latest AI GPUs faster to meet the needs of cloud computing giants like .
AMD CEO Lisa Su wrote in a press release, "Acquiring ZT Systems is the next important step in our long-term AI strategy." "ZT brings world-class system design and rack-level solutions expertise, which will greatly enhance our data center AI system and customer support capabilities."
"Our main gain is that we can sell more GPUs."$Microsoft (MSFT.US)$is the head of global strategy.
Su mentioned that AMD has no intention of competing with companies such as Supermicro. After the transaction is completed, AMD will split and sell ZT's manufacturing assets, but retain its system design capabilities. ZT's CEO, Frank Zhang, will join AMD's Data Center Solutions Business Team.
This deal means that AMD will absorb about 1,000 engineers out of approximately 2,500 employees at ZT. If the acquisition is approved by regulatory authorities, the transaction is expected to be completed in the first half of 2025 and will take an additional 12 to 18 months to sell the manufacturing business.
Analysts believe that gathering thousands of experienced system engineers would cost billions of dollars, and acquiring ZT is indeed a feasible way, and compared to Super Micro Computer, the acquisition of ZT is relatively cheaper, and the level of these two companies' system engineers may be close.
Editor/Emily