AMD & Sony project Amethyst

[Kaotik]

Sony & AMD have put together project Amethyst, which plans to develop better AI suited architecture(s) which not only can do the usual AI stuff, but are especially well suited for light CNNs used in games, create CNNs for game graphics & gameplay etc.
Nothing will be platform proprietary, both AMD and Sony are free to make technologies based on Amethyst stuff

I have some very exciting news to share. We have begun a deeper collaboration with AMD. For the project name we’re taking a hint from AMD’s red and PlayStation’s blue. The code name is Amethyst.

With Amethyst, we’ve started on another long journey and are combining our expertise with two goals in mind.

The first goal is a more ideal architecture for machine learning. Something capable of generalized processing of neural networks but particularly good at the lightweight CNNs needed for game graphics and something focused around achieving that Holy Grail of fully-fused networks.

In going after this we’re combining the lessons AMD has learned from its multi-generation RDNA road map and SIE has learned from the custom work in PS5 Pro.

But ML use in games shouldn’t and can’t be restricted to graphics libraries. We’re also working towards a democratization of machine learning something accessible that allows direct work in AI and ML by game developers both for graphics and for gameplay.

Amethyst is not about proprietary technology for PlayStation. In fact it’s the exact opposite. Through this technology collaboration we’re looking to support broad work and machine learning across a variety of devices.

The other goal is to develop, in parallel, a set of highquality CNNs for game graphics. Both SIE and AMD will independently have the ability to draw from this collection of network architectures and training strategies, and these components should be key in increasing the richness of game graphics as well as enabling more extensive use of ray tracing and path tracing.

We’re looking forward to keeping you posted throughout what we anticipate to be a multi-year collaboration.

PlayStation and AMD are teaming up to infuse games with AI

The work could benefit graphics and gameplay.

www.theverge.com

 

[Scott_Arm]

I really like this partnership. I think Sony will give AMD the direction they lack so they can lead in some areas instead of following.

 

[DegustatoR]

I really like this partnership. I think Sony will give AMD the direction they lack so they can lead in some areas instead of following.

This truly the best way to look at this.

 

[Scott_Arm]

This truly the best way to look at this.

It's also not meant to be condescending. From everything I read from developers AMD has very good hardware design, and their openness about the ISA, and stuff like that, makes it really nice to work with. I did see Timothy Lottes complaining about issues with the ISA/shader compiler recently, but in general everything seems positive. Devs generally seem to want a lighter-weight API and more flexibility for AMD, because the architecture is flexible. I think their issue is this stuff doesn't translate into a compelling story for the consumer. It's under-the-hood dev stuff. Sony will likely drive them back to novel things that the consumer will appreciate.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I expect Sony will be really useful to AMD for having world-class technical first party studios who can plug into AMD's research, offering direct data for design, training, and evaluation. I guess we'll see the fruits of their labours in the upcoming AMD ML solutions. It'd be really nice if they were labelled 'Amethyst' in some way so we know where they come from, but given it's not proprietary nor locked to Sony, I guess anything CNN-looking will have seen SIE's involvement.

Sadly whenever we hear about a collab, it rarely leads to ongoing insight and anything that happens happens behind closed doors with no idea who contributed what if anything. How's the MS+Sony Cloud collab going?