AMD CEO Lisa Su Says AI Is Entering 'Yottascale' Era At CES 2026: Predicts 'Massive Increase' In Global Compute Demand, Far Beyond Data Centers

At CES 2026, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) CEO Lisa Su laid out a sweeping vision for the next phase of artificial intelligence, offering a clear and much-needed signal that the global demand for new compute resources is only set to accelerate going forward. AI Is Entering The ‘Yottascale’ Era During her keynote speech at the event on Monday night, Su said that the world is entering what she called the “yottascale” era of computing, a period in which the deployment of increasingly powerful AI models will require an unprecedented expansion of global computing capacity. “This moment in tech not only feels different, AI is different,” Su said. “AI is the most powerful technology that has ever been created and it can be everywhere for everyone.” See Also: This AI Training Startup CEO Says Synthetic Data Can’t Replace Human Judgment ‘For Decades To Come’ Meeting that demand, Su emphasized, will require a far broader computing footprint than in previous technology cycles. She said it will involve “solutions from the largest systems in the cloud, to AI PCs, to embedded computing.” Su stated that this transformation cannot be achieved in isolation. “It takes an open ecosystem built on industry standards,” she said, adding that the future of AI will depend on collaboration across the entire technology sector. The AMD chief executive framed the shift as a long-term structural change rather than a short-lived product cycle. “The world's most important challenges can only be solved by bringing the industry ecosystem together,” she said. Will AI Capex Continue To Soar? Su’s comments come amid growing concerns regarding a potential slowdown in the multi-billion-dollar AI spending spree in recent years. While the big tech companies are showing no signs of slowing down on their AI capex, analysts believe that power shortages and financial constraints can create a hard cap on how fast they can deploy new infrastructure to meet soaring demand. Last week, Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas echoed a similar theme, warning that the rapid advance of embedded AI could eventually upend the traditional data-center-centric model. As intelligence becomes increasingly compressed and capable of running directly on devices, Srinivas said the need for centralized inference could shrink dramatically. “The biggest threat to a data center is if the intelligence can be packed locally on a chip that's running on the device,” he said. Shares of AMD were down 1.07% on Monday, closing at $221.08, but are up 0.4% overnight. The stock scores high on Momentum in Benzinga’s Edge Stock Rankings, with a favorable price trend in the Medium and Long terms. Click here for deeper insights into the stock, its peers, and competitors. Read More: What To Expect At CES 2026: Nvidia, AMD, Joby, Archer, D-Wave And More Photo courtesy: Shutterstock