AMD vs Cerebras: Founders, CEOs and History
AMD was founded in 1969 by Jerry Sanders, Edwin Turney and is led by Lisa Su. Cerebras was founded in 2015 by Andrew Feldman, Gary Lauterbach, Sean Lie and is led by Andrew Feldman.
Company facts
Founders
AMD
Jerry Sanders
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) was founded in May 1969 by Jerry Sanders, a charismatic, flamboyant electrical engineer, along with seven of his colleagues from Fairchild Semiconductor (the well-known incubator of Silicon Valley that also birthed Intel).
Edwin Turney
Edwin Turney helped establish the operating foundation behind AMD's early logic-device business. While Sanders became the public face, Turney's contribution was making sure the company could earn trust through production reliability and execution.
Cerebras
Andrew Feldman
Andrew Feldman is a highly prominent technology entrepreneur and the CEO and co-founder of Cerebras Systems, a company that has completely revolutionized artificial intelligence hardware.
Gary Lauterbach
Gary Lauterbach is a brilliant hardware architect and co-founder of Cerebras Systems, serving as the primary architectural visionary behind the company's unprecedented Wafer-Scale Engine.
Sean Lie
Sean Lie is a co-founder and Chief Hardware Architect at Cerebras Systems. A prodigy in digital logic design, Lie architected the internal 2D mesh fabric of the Wafer-Scale Engine, connecting 900,000 independent AI processor cores with line-rate, low-latency i…
Michael James
Michael James is a co-founder and Chief Software Architect at Cerebras Systems. He directs the Cerebras software compiler stack, developing automated graph compilation tools that translate PyTorch and TensorFlow neural networks into physical core topologies ac…
Jean-Philippe Fricker
Jean-Philippe Fricker is a highly accomplished systems engineer and a co-founder of Cerebras Systems.
CEOs and their tenures
AMD
- Jerry Sanders1969–2002
CEO
Sanders, born in Chicago in 1936, worked at Douglas Aircraft and Motorola before joining Fairchild Semiconductor in 1961, where he rose to head worldwide sales and marketing.
Source - Hector Ruiz2002–2008
CEO
Ruiz grew up in Piedras Negras, Mexico, and as a teenager crossed the US border daily to attend high school in Eagle Pass, Texas, graduating valedictorian only three years after learning English.
Source - Dirk Meyer2008–2011
CEO
Meyer, a University of Illinois computer-engineering graduate with an MBA from Boston University, co-architected the Alpha 21064 and 21264 microprocessors at Digital Equipment Corporation before joining AMD in 1996, where he personally led development of the o…
Source - Rory Read2011–2014
CEO
Read spent 23 years at IBM in global leadership roles before becoming president and COO of Lenovo, and holds an information-sciences degree from Hartwick College.
Source - Lisa Su2014–present
CEO
Born in Taiwan and raised in the United States, Su earned bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees in electrical engineering from MIT and worked at Texas Instruments, IBM and Freescale Semiconductor before joining AMD in 2012 as senior vice president of glob…
Source
Cerebras
- Robert Komin
Chief Financial Officer
Leads finance and investor relations as CFO, reporting Cerebras' first quarterly results as a public company in 2026.
Source - Andrew Feldman2015–present
Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder
Co-founded SeaMicro and sold it to AMD in 2012 before co-founding Cerebras. Led the company from the first wafer-scale chip in 2019 through the OpenAI compute deal and the $5.55 billion May 2026 Nasdaq IPO.
Source - Sean Lie2015–present
Co-Founder & Hardware Architect
Led the unprecedented hardware engineering required to successfully manufacture the Wafer-Scale Engine, the largest and most complex artificial intelligence processor in history.
Source
Timeline: AMD and Cerebras side by side
1969AMD
Advanced Micro Devices Founded
Jerry Sanders and seven colleagues from Fairchild Semiconductor founded AMD on May 1, 1969, and broke ground that year on the 915 DeGuigne building in Sunnyvale, California, which remained the headquarters for more than 47 years.
1975AMD
Entry Into Microprocessors
AMD entered the microprocessor market in 1975, moving beyond the logic devices it started with. The decision put it into direct competition with Intel and made x86 compatibility the center of its business for the next four decades.
1999AMD
Athlon Breakthrough
Athlon launched in 1999 and matched or beat Intel on desktop performance. In March 2000 AMD announced the first 1 GHz x86 processor, days ahead of Intel, which changed how enthusiasts and PC makers judged the company.
2005AMD
Antitrust Lawsuit Against Intel
AMD sued Intel in 2005, alleging rebates and exclusionary practices that limited its access to PC makers.
2006AMD
ATI Technologies Acquired
AMD acquired ATI Technologies in 2006 for about $5.4B to add graphics and chipsets. The debt-funded deal strained the balance sheet just as Intel shipped Core 2, but ATI became the basis for Radeon graphics, console APUs, and later Instinct accelerators.
2009AMD
Fabless Pivot Through GlobalFoundries
AMD moved its manufacturing operations into GlobalFoundries in 2009 and stopped owning fabs. The change removed billions of annual capital spending and let AMD buy leading-edge capacity, but it also tied the product roadmap to outside foundries.
2011AMD
Bulldozer Architecture Failure
Bulldozer traded single-thread performance for core count at a time when most software depended on per-core speed. Reviews were poor, PC maker confidence fell, and server share collapsed, which is what forced the clean-sheet Zen project.
2014AMD
Lisa Su Becomes CEO
AMD's board appointed Lisa Su president and CEO on October 8, 2014, succeeding Rory Read. She narrowed the company around high-performance computing and put the engineering budget behind the Zen CPU core rather than spreading it across incremental projects.
2015Cerebras
Cerebras Systems Founded in Los Altos
Andrew Feldman, Gary Lauterbach, Sean Lie, Michael James, and Jean-Philippe Fricker founded Cerebras in stealth mode.
2017AMD
Ryzen, EPYC, and Chiplets Rebuild AMD
Zen reached the market in 2017 as Ryzen for desktops and EPYC for servers. Chiplet packaging over Infinity Fabric let AMD build high core-count parts from smaller dies, improving usable yield and giving it a cost structure Intel's monolithic designs could not…
2019Cerebras
Unveiling of the Historic Wafer-Scale Engine 1 (WSE-1)
Shocked the semiconductor industry at Hot Chips by revealing the world's first wafer-scale chip (1.2T transistors, 400,000 cores).
2021Cerebras
Launch of WSE-2 & $250M Series F at $4.0B Valuation
Released 7nm WSE-2 with 2.6 trillion transistors and 850,000 cores, raising $250 million led by Alpha Wave Ventures.
2022AMD
Xilinx Acquisition
AMD completed the Xilinx acquisition in February 2022. The all-stock deal was announced in October 2020 at about $35B and was worth roughly $49B at close.
2023Cerebras
Condor Galaxy Multi-Exoflop Supercomputer Alliance with G42
Announced historic partnership with UAE's G42 to build Condor Galaxy, one of the world's largest AI supercomputers.
2024Cerebras
Debut of WSE-3 with 4 Trillion Transistors (TSMC 5nm)
Unveiled WSE-3, delivering 125 petaflops of AI compute and 900,000 cores on a single 300mm silicon wafer.
2024Cerebras
Launch of Cerebras Inference Cloud (1,800+ Tokens/Sec)
Launched cloud inference platform, setting global records by generating 1,800+ tokens per second on Llama 3.1 70B.
2024Cerebras
Cerebras Files Public S-1 Registration for Nasdaq IPO
Filed its first Form S-1 for a Nasdaq listing under the ticker CBRS in September 2024, disclosing that G42 supplied 87% of first-half 2024 revenue; the filing was withdrawn in 2025.
2025AMD
ZT Systems Acquired and Its Factories Sold
AMD closed the ZT Systems purchase on March 31, 2025, paying $3.2B in cash plus 8.3 million shares for rack-scale AI systems design.
2025AMD
OpenAI Agrees to Deploy 6 Gigawatts of AMD GPUs
On October 6, 2025 AMD and OpenAI announced a multi-year agreement covering 6 gigawatts of AMD GPUs, starting with a 1 gigawatt Instinct MI450 deployment in the second half of 2026.
2025AMD
Record $34.6B Revenue
AMD reported FY2025 revenue of $34.6B, up 34%, with net income of $4.3B and a 50% gross margin.
2026AMD
Meta Agrees to Deploy Up to 6 Gigawatts of AMD GPUs
On February 24, 2026 AMD and Meta announced a multi-year agreement for up to 6 gigawatts of Instinct GPUs.
2026Cerebras
Nasdaq IPO as CBRS
Priced 30 million shares at $185 on May 13, 2026, raising $5.55 billion, and closed its first day of trading up 68% at $311.07.
Acquisitions
AMD
- ZT Systems2025$4.9B
- Silo AI2024$665M
- Xilinx2022$49B
- Pensando Systems2022$1.9B
- ATI Technologies2006$5.4B
Cerebras
No verified acquisitions are listed.
Questions about AMD vs Cerebras
Who is the CEO of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. and Cerebras Systems Inc.?
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. is led by Lisa Su and Cerebras Systems Inc. is led by Andrew Feldman. Both serve as the top executive responsible for the company's strategy, operations, and financial performance.
When was Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. founded vs Cerebras Systems Inc.?
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. was founded in 1969 — 46 years before Cerebras Systems Inc., which was founded in 2015. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.'s longer operating history gives it a deeper track record but also potentially more institutional inertia compared to the younger Cerebras Systems Inc..
How many employees does Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. have compared to Cerebras Systems Inc.?
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. employs approximately 31,000 people, while Cerebras Systems Inc. employs approximately 708. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. has the larger workforce at 31,000 employees, compared to Cerebras Systems Inc.'s 708. A higher headcount does not necessarily imply greater efficiency — it often reflects differences in business model (e.g., manufacturing vs. software).
Where are Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. and Cerebras Systems Inc. headquartered?
Both Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. and Cerebras Systems Inc. are headquartered in United States, meaning they operate under the same primary regulatory and tax environment.
Who founded Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. and Cerebras Systems Inc.?
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. was founded by Jerry Sanders, Edwin Turney. Cerebras Systems Inc. was founded by Andrew Feldman, Gary Lauterbach, Sean Lie, Michael James, Jean-Philippe Fricker.
Which company has a longer operating history — Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. or Cerebras Systems Inc.?
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. has been operating for approximately 57 years, making it the more established of the two companies. Cerebras Systems Inc. has been in operation for around 11 years. A longer operating history often signals greater institutional resilience and brand recognition, though it can also mean slower adaptation to new market conditions.
Figures come from each company's filings and the sources linked beside them. Amounts reported in another currency are shown in US dollars at an approximate rate and marked with ~. Back to the AMD vs Cerebras overview