Lisa Su

MIT and IBM

Su was born in Tainan, Taiwan, in 1969. She earned her bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering at MIT. After a short spell at Texas Instruments, she joined IBM in 1995.12491012

At IBM she worked on the move from aluminium to copper wiring inside chips, served as technical assistant to the chief executive Lou Gerstner and ran the PowerPC and Emerging Products line. She rose to vice president of semiconductor research and development.291112

Taking over AMD

In 2007 she left for Freescale Semiconductor as chief technology officer. AMD hired her in January 2012 to run its global business units, and she later became chief operating officer. On 8 October 2014 she was named president and chief executive, succeeding Rory Read. "I am deeply honored to have this opportunity to lead AMD during this important time of transformation," she said that day.128

In February 2022 AMD completed its all-stock takeover of Xilinx, and Su became chair of the board as well. Fortune reported in September 2026 that AMD had become the first woman-led company worth more than $1 trillion.11328

Selling AI chips by the gigawatt

In October 2025 AMD agreed to supply OpenAI with 6 gigawatts of GPUs and gave it a warrant for up to 160 million AMD shares. "We are thrilled to partner with OpenAI to deliver AI compute at massive scale," Su said. Meta followed in February 2026 with another 6 gigawatts and a warrant of the same size. In July Anthropic signed for up to 2 gigawatts of MI450 chips, and AMD committed to invest up to $5 billion in it.567

Asked at WIRED's Big Interview in December 2025 whether AI was a bubble, Su said "emphatically" no, Tom's Hardware reported. The Revolving Door Project, a watchdog group, argues that the boom is partly inflated by circular financing in which AMD takes part. Su's own view of the technology, as she put it to MIT graduates in May 2026: "Technology itself does not decide what the future looks like. People do."172627

China and pay

AMD's chip sales to China run through US export policy. A 2025 restriction on its MI308 chip cost it about $800 million in inventory and related charges, its annual report says. After licences came through and shipping resumed late in 2025, it reversed about $360 million. In August 2025 US officials said they expected the government to take 15% of revenue from licensed MI308 sales to China. Reuters reported that Su said in December 2025 that AMD was prepared to pay. Some legal experts argued such a fee could breach the US Constitution's ban on export taxes, and AMD's annual report says no regulation setting the requirement had been published.182223

AMD's proxy statement puts Su's 2025 total pay at $55.2 million, 341 times that of the company's median employee. In 2020 the Associated Press found she was the first woman to top its annual survey of chief executive pay. Shareholders backed AMD's pay policy with about 85% of the vote in 2025. A 2014 shareholder suit alleging her equity awards broke the plan's annual limit ended in 2017, when the Delaware Court of Chancery dismissed it with prejudice. AMD had already rescinded and replaced the awards, and it paid $55,000 towards the plaintiff's legal fees while disputing that the suit achieved anything.12425

Su, year by year

1. 1994

   Completed a PhD in electrical engineering at MIT, on silicon-on-insulator MOSFETs910

2. 1994

   Joined Texas Instruments' Semiconductor Process and Device Center as technical staff2

3. 1995

   Joined IBM, where she worked on copper chip interconnects and later ran semiconductor R&D as a vice president212

4. 2007

   Joined Freescale Semiconductor as chief technology officer2

5. Jan 2012

   Joined AMD as senior vice president and general manager of global business units; later chief operating officer1

6. Oct 2014

   Appointed AMD president and CEO, succeeding Rory Read18

7. Feb 2022

   AMD completed its all-stock acquisition of Xilinx; Su became chair of the board113

8. Oct 2025

   AMD agreed to supply OpenAI with 6 gigawatts of GPUs and issued it a warrant for up to 160 million AMD shares5

9. Feb 2026

   AMD and Meta announced a 6 gigawatt GPU partnership, with a warrant for up to 160 million shares6

10. Jul 2026

    AMD and Anthropic agreed a deal for up to 2 gigawatts of MI450 GPUs; AMD committed to invest up to $5 billion in Anthropic7

11. Oct 2026

    Received the National Medal of Science from President Trump21415

Questions people ask about Lisa Su

Lisa Su on Kenning

We haven't written about Lisa Su yet. New stories will appear here.