Amd stops sharing its x86 chip intellectual property with china

AMD CEO Lisa Su has confirmed that the company has no plans to license more x86 chip designs to THATIC, the company's Chinese joint venture with Hygon.

AMD stops sharing its x86 IP with China

This means that Hygon will stick to AMD's original Zen architecture, preventing them from taking advantage of Zen 2 innovations and future AMD CPU microarchitectures.

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In 2016, AMD agreed to license its x86 IP and SoC to Tianjin Haiguang Advanced Technology Investment Co. Ltd. ("THATIC"), a joint venture between AMD and Hygon that would allow the latter to create and sell x86 processors in the Chinese market. This deal gave AMD $ 293 million and the promise of royalty payments, giving AMD a much-needed injection of cash.

This joint venture allowed Chinese companies to manufacture x86 processors with custom elements that would make them suitable for use by the Chinese government, while giving Intel new competition within the region. Now AMD seems happy to keep its new IP to itself, with Lisa Su claiming that "THATIC was a single-generation technology license, and there are no additional technology licenses."

Compared to 2016, AMD is in a fundamentally different financial situation. AMD now makes a profit every quarter, and the company is poised to have incredible success in 2019 with the launch of Zen 2, which will shake up both the server and consumer PC markets. Simply put, AMD no longer needs to share its intellectual property with China as it can make a profit without them.

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