Lisa Su

Chipmaker AMD seized the AI moment under Lisa Su’s leadership, and the CEO says that the “AI supercycle” is just getting started. In August, AMD announced plans to acquire AI infrastructure group ZT Systems in a $4.9 billion deal. Su’s career started out in engineering, and she founded the emerging products unit at IBM. When she stepped in as chief executive at AMD in 2014, the semiconductor company was nearly bankrupt. During Su’s decade at the helm, the company got back on track by reinvigorating its focus on high-performance AI products like central-processing and graphics-processing units and field-programmable gate arrays. AMD brought in nearly $23 billion in revenue for its fiscal year ended June 30 and is today considered the most viable rival to leading AI chip giant Nvidia.