Episode 3 | Mark Papermaster | CTO & EVP AMD | Shashi Tripathi | IIT2026 Global Conference

AMD's focus is on allowing computing to make a difference in people's lives. And what we focus on is high performance computing. AMD powers the number one and the number two supercomputer in the world.

The impact of technology on delivering AI capabilities, what AI can do, and how we can come together as an industry to supply what you'll hear me call the insatiable computing demand. We will always and should always have skepticism of new technologies because it has to prove itself, and we are on the early arc, the early apex of this massive explosion of AI-driven new processes, new applications. So there should be skepticism.

Shashi, first of all, thanks for inviting me to speak and keynote at IIT 2026. I'm super excited about it and can't wait. And I love that we have a chance to talk here in advance. Let me start just by describing a little of my history in the industry. I have been extremely fortunate because I started in technology right at an inflection point, and that inflection point was the introduction of the PC. So think about it. Computers and computing was some distant force that was always behind a glass wall in some computer center. Not that we don't still have major data centers that are behind the wall, but computing wasn't personal to the rest of us. None of us could really touch and feel how computing could affect our lives. And the PC changed that. It brought computing into our lives. And so we now of course don't even think about content creation, creating presentations at work, managing your photo albums at home, driving productivity programs that you might write. All of that we now are accustomed to having that be very personal. And of course then it led to the internet coming out and connecting all of us with those computation devices. Mobile, what a fantastic transition that was where then it wasn't even with us personally, that personal computing could be in your pocket and by the way it had a photo and a video camera all embedded in it. So that changed the nature of how we deal with computing. And then it brings us up to the current era, Shashi, AI. The most transformative technology in the four plus decades I've had in the industry. So I've been fortunate to traverse these inflection points coming up to this most exciting time. And I've been fortunate to work at great companies. I was with IBM in computer development for 25 years. I was able to drive the development of IBM's technology. I had great opportunities at Apple working for Steve Jobs driving the iPhone and the iPod development there. Networking with Cisco, and then the last 14 years in the role as CTO driving our research and development activities at AMD. It's been incredibly exciting, and never have I been more optimistic about the future role that technology can play in our lives.

Well, I tell you, I engross so much of my work time is consuming. So in the industry I'm in of creating leading edge chips, when you're working which is a lot, it's very consuming. It just takes all of your energies. So I like nothing more and maximizing my weekend time. Of course I have some meetings or some work I get done on various weekends. But what I try to do the bulk of my career is prioritize the family time. It's the zen moment in my life to spend time with my wife. We have three kids. They're now grown, and they're all married. They've moved out of the house. We have three grandchildren. So I feel very fortunate. So my simple answer is family is what makes my life complete. And we just like doing things together, playing sports, watching movies together, being out in the water. We're very much a family that loves water. So I really find that in today's world, it's so fast-paced. All of us need to focus on of course our passion for our careers but equally what makes you happy and at peace, and it's tough to find the balance, and I've been fortunate to do so over my years.

AMD's focus is on allowing computing to make a difference in people's lives. And what we focus on is high performance computing. Computing that can help solve some of the world's toughest problems. That starts with supercomputers. AMD powers the number one and the number two supercomputer in the world, but it moves right into the data center where you might be running CPU workloads on a cloud, now GPU workloads. We've got a very competitive GPU for running the most demanding AI workloads, right down into what's called the edge, the applications that are more finely tuned. They might be industrial robotics, what's running your airplane, your autonomous vehicle that you're driving, embedded devices. We have a deep portfolio there as well as PCs and gaming. In all of those markets, our ability to bring transformative high performance technology that's energy efficient and how it runs, and now all of it AI accelerated, is how we strive to make a difference in people's lives, making the democratization of the ability to get at high performance computing.

Shashi, we are a global company and India makes up a very central part of what we do at AMD, and it didn't always used to be that way. When I joined 14 years ago, when Lisa Su joined the company, India was a very small part of the overall operations. But I realized right away that it was such a growing economy and that the talent in India was so strong that we need to strengthen its role in the company. In the time that I have been here, we've grown our India population of engineering from under 1,000 to over 10,000. It's grown 10x, and it really spans everything that we do in the company. It's an integral part of our development operations and our business operations. And IIT, to be honest, we're now a top company, we're a growing company, we're always in the list of top performing companies, but when you go back 14 years ago, we had to transform ourselves to become that company. In India, the engineers were very hungry to help fuel that growth, and at that time I would say we were unknown at IITs in India. But as we started to grow, the interest rose. I was invited to speak at IIT in Mumbai, and I remember the auditorium just being filled, and I was asked the most amazing questions. I said, how do these students, how could they be so steeped in the technology that we work on for chip development for high performance computing and AI? But they were amazing. And what we've done the last years since then, that was probably five or six years ago, we've really increased our relationship with IITs across India. We partner with them, we do co-research, we have AI development access to them so they can get on our computing capabilities and develop new approaches, and we hire from IIT. So it's really been an expanded relationship and one that we're very happy about. But I do sponsor India, and I have since I joined the company, for all the reasons I just said. It was very clear to me 14 years ago that they would need to be a very important part of the global company which we are.

Yeah, my keynote at April at the IIT symposia, what I'm wanting to share is really the impact of technology on delivering AI capabilities, what AI can do, and how we can come together as an industry to supply what you'll hear me call the insatiable computing demand of AI. So we all know it's a transformative force, but how do we do it in such a way that we can actually support those needs, have a sustainable, managed process of how we grow at this exponential pace in a rational way going forward. And really I'd like to share what I will tell you is I am an optimist. When I look at these capabilities, you can always say oh how could technology be used in ways that could be a negative impact. But the way I look at it, the ways in which it can positively impact our lives, drive new discoveries, new forms of medicine, new drugs that we can apply, they're incredibly uplifting, and I want to share that feeling and of course acknowledge that we have to manage new technologies to make sure that they're used in the right way. That's what I'd like to discuss with your audience when I get that opportunity in April.

Well, we will always and should always have skepticism of new technologies because it has to prove itself, and we are on the early arc, the early apex of this massive explosion of AI-driven new processes, new applications. So there should be skepticism. That's okay. What I'd urge people to do is don't take skepticism as somehow a justification to ignore the new technology trend because it's an inexorable force that is coming. It's like if you said, 'Oh, years ago, I don't even want to use computers. I don't want to use electricity.' I mean, you can go back to any of these major forces and it doesn't do any good to allow skepticism that might be healthy to become unhealthy and not adopt it. I would urge everyone to try out, use some of these generative AI applications like ChatGPT, like Gemini, and Grok, and the rest. Try them out. See how they help you be more productive. And if you just try it in your personal life, and if you're like me, you'll see it have an immediate impact on your productivity. Multiply that by a hundred, multiply that by a thousand, and then you understand the promise of AI to make us incredibly more productive and spend our time where we want to, not on tasks that were just frankly time-consuming and didn't tap our full creative capabilities.

Over time, Shashi, enterprises will find it easier and easier to adopt AI because it'll be built into everything you do. Whatever application you already had, you can build it in. But most businesses, most enterprises will need to tap their own data. That's how it makes it most powerful because whatever your business is, you have the data that if you train and create AI finely tuned models, and they don't have to be these big large language models you hear about that the big generative AIs run on. It can be a much smaller model tuned just to what your enterprise is doing, and that's when you're going to get the real benefit. What I think is most people that are getting initial challenges in adopting AI, what I'd urge them to do is pull in an expert that can show you that they've done it. Find a use case that's similar to you where they have the experience, they've done it, and can show you the cutting edge tools and the best way to do it. And above all, make sure that internal to your enterprise, you have someone that's knowledgeable about AI, thinking about the data you have that you can put to work for you. So the short answer to your question is you really need to think about it like any new endeavor. It has to be well thought out. And if you have a well-thought-out plan and you really focus on being pragmatic how you execute it, I think you'll find your success ratio to dramatically go up. And Shashi, I think, you know, the question I'd ask back to you as an investor, what are you seeing in the industry and what are the current trends that are most prevalent?

Great.

Shashi, when you say what challenges do we see in the industry, what I have to say is we've really covered it in this discussion. It's about each business really thinking about how are they transforming, not just how they use AI, but how their very processes for whatever they do can be reinvented with AI. Because if they don't look at it that way, the business challenge you face is that you could be disrupted by a company that is native AI. They come at the same business you're at but they think about it how AI can help in every aspect and they could pass by you. So that's probably challenge number one that I'd highlight. Secondly, it's of course making sure that you're pragmatic because it's expensive to deploy AI. So you have to make sure you're getting the return on investment. And then thirdly, you have to make sure that you have the right guard rails because you need to assure that you have ethical use of AI and frankly that you have the right accuracy. If you create an AI that is subject to a higher hallucination as it's called in the industry, than what is your talent level, you don't have checks and balances for that. That's another challenge. So overall, I just say people need to be cognizant of the challenges and take them head on.

As a technology company, Shashi, as you might imagine, we are actually the GPU and CPU under most all of them in some shape way and form, and so I can't play favorites. I use them all.

What an incredibly exciting time we have in technology. It's going to create a lot of change in our society, and so we all have to be ready to be adaptable. And I can't wait to join you, Shashi, at the IIT world conference in 2026 in Long Beach. So until then, we'll pick up the conversation at that time.