AMD has announced plans to acquire Finnish artificial intelligence startup Silo AI for $665 million, marking one of Europe’s largest AI takeovers. This move is part of AMD’s strategy to expand its AI services and compete with market leader Nvidia.
The California-based chipmaker stated that Silo AI’s 300-member team will leverage its software tools to create custom large language models (LLMs), the technology behind AI chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. The all-cash deal is expected to close in the second half of this year, pending regulatory approval.
“This agreement helps us both accelerate our customer engagements and deployments while also helping us accelerate our own AI tech stack,” Vamsi Boppana, senior vice president of AMD’s artificial intelligence group, told the Financial Times.
This acquisition is the largest of a privately held AI startup in Europe since Google’s purchase of UK-based DeepMind for around £400 million in 2014, according to Dealroom data.
The deal occurs amid increased regulatory scrutiny of Silicon Valley buyouts in Brussels and the UK. European AI startups like Mistral, DeepL, and Helsing have raised significant funds this year as investors seek a local rival to US-based OpenAI and Anthropic.
Helsinki-based Silo AI, one of Europe’s largest private AI labs, provides tailored AI models and platforms to enterprise customers. Last year, Silo AI launched an initiative to develop LLMs in European languages, including Swedish, Icelandic, and Danish.
AMD’s AI technology competes with Nvidia’s, which dominates the high-performance chip market. Nvidia’s market success has propelled its valuation past $3 trillion this year, driven by the demand for computing infrastructure to support large AI models. AMD began rolling out its MI300 chips last year, directly challenging Nvidia’s “Hopper” line of chips.
Peter Sarlin, Silo AI co-founder and chief executive, called the acquisition the “logical next step” as the Finnish company aims to become a flagship AI entity.
Silo AI is committed to open-source AI models, which are freely available and customizable. This approach contrasts with companies like OpenAI and Google, which favor proprietary models.
Silo AI’s family of open models, known as “Poro,” aims to strengthen European digital sovereignty and democratize access to LLMs. The concentration of powerful LLMs in a few US-based Big Tech companies has drawn antitrust scrutiny in Washington and Brussels.
AMD’s acquisition of Silo AI signals its intent to rapidly scale its business and enhance customer engagement with its AI offerings. AMD sees Silo AI, which builds custom models for clients, as a bridge between its foundational AI software and real-world applications.
Software has become a crucial battleground for semiconductor companies, which seek to lock in customers to their hardware and generate more predictable revenues, outside the cyclical nature of chip sales.
Nvidia’s success in the AI market is largely attributed to its investment in Cuda, its proprietary software platform that allows chips originally designed for graphics processing to run a wide range of applications. Nvidia has expanded Cuda to include numerous apps and services, primarily targeting corporate customers without the in-house resources to build on its technology.
Nvidia now offers over 600 pre-trained models, simplifying deployment for customers. Recently, Nvidia launched a microservices platform called NIM, enabling developers to quickly build chatbots and AI “co-pilot” services. Historically, Nvidia offered its software free to chip buyers but announced plans to charge for products like NIM this year.
AMD is among several companies, including Meta, Microsoft, and Intel, contributing to the development of Triton, an OpenAI-led rival to Cuda, aimed at allowing AI developers to switch more easily between chip providers.
