Forrest Norrod

Executive VP & GM of the Data Center Solutions Business Group, Advanced Micro Devices

Search every verified Forrest Norrod interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Forrest Norrod, executive vice president and general manager of AMD’s Data Center Solutions Business Group, presented the company’s first rack-scale AI system, Helios, in a July 2026 CNBC exclusive. Norrod described Helios as a 7,000-pound, $5 million system containing 72 GPUs and 18 CPUs per rack, and stated it is shipping to customers including Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, and Oracle later this year. He characterized Helios as an open system built on industry standards, contrasting it with Nvidia’s proprietary approach, and said the system performs better, is more efficient, and is more customizable than Nvidia’s Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin systems. Norrod also noted that optical interconnects will become prevalent within racks in the next two to three years, and said AMD would comply with regulatory regimes regarding sales to China. Norrod expressed confidence in AMD’s competitive position, stating that “there’s a serious case in which AMD does great and can get to 20 and 25%” market share, and that “it’s absolutely our aspiration to be able to gain market share.” He also observed a shift in the AI market away from “token maxing” toward practical token utilization, adding that if AMD architectures deliver better throughput and higher memory at a rationalized cost per token, “that stuff will start to win attention.”