On Aug. 19, AMD announced it was acquiring server maker ZT Systems for $4.9 billion (€4.4 billion). The European Commission may yet put a stop to it. The deadline for an antitrust objection is March 12.
This date was discovered by Reuters in an EC document dated Wednesday, Feb. 5. There aren’t any more details to be shared, so we can’t tell yet if the antitrust body is leaning towards intervention or not. AMD’s acquisition of ZT Systems could make it a stronger competitor to Nvidia. The latter is so dominant that a challenger hardly exists; AMD, however, is the closest approximation to one in the AI chip race.
Also read: Why Nvidia’s rivals think they have a chance to topple it
Importance of the deal
When the proposed acquisition was announced, we noted that ZT Systems’ design and customer teams are of particular interest to AMD. The purchase is perfectly justifiable for AMD, which has paid far more cash up front to secure its assets. In 2022, for example, AMD acquired FPGA maker Xilinx for $49 billion. Field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chips can be assembled by customers to optimize them for specific purposes. The chips are primarily used in industrial applications, but are also part of data center infrastructures.
ZT Systems operates from multiple locations in the US and elsewhere on the globe, including China, Taiwan, the Netherlands and Brazil.