AMD Acquires MEXT to Solve Rising Memory Scarcity Obstacles Through Predictive AI Optimization and Hardware Virtualization Integration
AMD is acquiring MEXT, a pioneer of AI based memory optimization technology. Hardware limitations have emerged as one of the primary obstacles in building modern enterprise infrastructure. "By integrating MEXT, AMD is expected to provide enterprises with better memory optimization, reduced total cost of ownership, and faster time to market for large scale computing projects" according to AMD.
The pace of innovation in cloud and corporate data centers is escalating, and hardware developers are hitting physical limitations in terms of memory access. Larger datasets used in artificial intelligence models, data analytics, virtualization, and HPC have turned memory into a central bottleneck. More performance per dollar and increased efficiency of the hardware has prompted development of a different strategy of interacting between processors and the available memory pool.
MEXT overcomes this bottleneck by employing a predictive memory technology. Through a proprietary software algorithm designed by MEXT engineers, slow and cheap flash storage devices may emulate behavior characteristic of high performance and expensive DRAM. Essentially a virtualization of memory capacity enables servers to run much larger datasets with dramatically reduced hardware expenditures in physical DRAM modules while balancing performance with tight budgets.
Acquisition of MEXT would be adding to AMD's comprehensive offering of both hardware and software solutions for the enterprise space. The chip maker intends to deploy MEXT across both its data center CPU and accelerator product lines. This approach will allow cloud operators and enterprises to gain more benefit from existing silicon while accelerating localized artificial intelligence applications.
In addition to the MEXT technology itself, AMD is gaining a specialized team of systems engineers and infrastructure specialists that will strengthen AMD's efforts to overcome the physical scaling limitations in building today's data centers. The merger is another strategic step from AMD to become a holistic provider of high performance computing capabilities capable of driving massive enterprise workloads efficiently.
