今天，我们为读者准备了一篇颇为独特的文章：对 AMD 在欧洲、中东和非洲(EMEA)地区的最高领导者之一罗杰·本森 ( Roger Benson ) 的采访。我们与他就过去一年、他学到的东西以及 AMD 2021 年的计划进行了交谈。如果您想了解更多关于 AMD 在商业和企业领域的活动以及公司的短期计划，请接受本次采访一读：
认识 Roger Benson(Meet Roger Benson)：EMEA商业(Commercial)销售高级(Senior Director)总监
罗杰·本森
Roger Benson是业界领先的半导体销售专家之一，负责 AMD 在欧洲(Europe)、中东(Middle East)和非洲(Africa)的商业业务。他一直站在 AMD 努力帮助合作伙伴应对这一流行病及其造成的波动市场条件的最前沿。
2021 年 AMD 在商业和企业领域的优先事项是什么？(What are AMD’s priorities for the commercial and enterprise sectors in 2021?)
在企业和公共部门的 IT 使用急剧增加的推动下，我们的首要任务是与我们的合作伙伴合作，以满足不断增长的需求。现在AMD已经向企业 IT 决策者证明了自己，我们将展示我们的长期承诺和路线图执行。我们将在 2021 年通过我们的“Zen 3”架构(“Zen 3” architecture)实现这一目标，该架构已应用于我们的AMD EPYC服务器以及Ryzen移动和桌面产品线。未来 12 个月，企业 IT 增长将继续加速，我们正在努力通过我们的Ryzen和EPYC产品满足这一需求。我们还与我们的OEM合作(OEM)和云合作伙伴为他们提供所需的产品和技术，以利用持续激增的需求。
AMD 与其在商业领域的主要竞争对手之间最大的区别是什么？(What are the biggest differentiators between AMD and its main competitor in the commercial sector?)
AMD与我们的硅代工合作伙伴密切合作，在硅制造领域占据领先地位，这在过去一年中整个行业都无法做到。尽管一些竞争对手面临重大困难，但AMD在我们的服务器和客户端产品中使用 7nm 芯片引领了行业。
服务器空间需要核心计算性能和平衡的系统。我们的产品旨在平衡和优化核心性能、内存带宽和 IO 带宽性能，以满足客户的工作负载和应用程序需求。我们的重点是如何帮助客户解决从第一个概念设计到最终产品的业务问题。
大流行是否改变了数据中心、服务器计算硬件和相关技术的市场？(Has the pandemic changed the market for data centers, server computing hardware, and associated technologies?)
我已经看到并读到了数字渠道，而不是大流行之前企业所依赖的实体渠道，成为这一新常态下许多公司增长最快的收入来源。
企业必须通过在其整个运营中实现远程工作来适应，这通常需要新的 IT 基础设施和解决方案来确保业务连续性和员工生产力得到维持。这里最相关的支持技术是云计算和网络安全。AMD已做好充分准备，无论是现在还是未来，都可以解决这两个领域的问题。市场需要更多的计算能力，我们可以帮助为本地数据中心和云提供计算能力。
我们的许多客户已经升级了他们的网络线路，以确保他们在公司和员工家之间有足够好的基础设施。我们还看到客户对新台式机和笔记本电脑产品的需求激增。我们预计云计算使用的这种需求和加速将持续到 2021 年。
在他们的工作和协作质量需要最新和最伟大的技术的所有中断期间，这确实让人们感到很震惊。从您制作的视频的流畅度到您使用的应用程序的效率，这一切都取决于性能。因此，我们看到了对中高端产品的强劲需求。
AMD与所有这些领域的客户进行了合作，并将新一代处理器推向市场，为从消费者和企业客户到最新数据中心和云应用程序的所有人提供合适的解决方案。
AMD 在与 COVID-19 的斗争中做了什么？它与谁合作？(What has AMD been doing in the fight against COVID-19? Who is it partnering with?)
我们的芯片嵌入了几台帮助 COVID-19 患者康复的呼吸机中，我们已向高性能计算机构捐款，以支持对该病毒的研究。我们还向英国剑桥大学(Cambridge University)、德国(Germany)莱布尼茨超级计算中心(Leibniz Supercomputing Centre)和斯图加特高性能计算中心(Stuttgart High-Performance Computing Centre)以及法国GENCI研究机构(GENCI research institution in France)捐赠了技术和硬件。
AMD COVID-19 高性能计算(AMD COVID-19 High Performance Computing)( HPC ) 基金
在 AMD 的商业产品线和细分市场、工作站、笔记本电脑和服务器 CPU 以及工作站 GPU 中，改变行业的长期趋势是什么？他们的影响是什么？(Across AMD’s commercial product lines and segments, workstations, laptops, and server CPUs, as well as workstation GPUs, what are the long-term trends transforming the industry? What will their impact be?)
AMD专注于在本地和云端提供成功的解决方案。对于内部部署部分，我们与传统服务器供应商合作，例如HPE、戴尔(Dell)、联想(Lenovo)、Supermicro等。我们与合作伙伴一起，生产出色的硬件基础设施解决方案，以满足企业现场部署需求。
关于云，我们曾与全球供应商合作，例如AWS、Microsoft、Azure、Google Cloud、IBM和Oracle。我们还与EMEA云提供商合作，例如OVH、Hetzner、Ionos、Scaleway等。AMD专注于传统云架构和混合解决方案，我们正在与这些提供商以及独立软件供应商(Independent Software Vendors)( ISV(ISVs) )（如VMware ）密切合作，以实现最高级别的云安全。
网络安全(Cybersecurity)是AMD的一个重点关注领域，从我们的服务器产品线延伸到我们的客户端产品线。我们提供安全的加密虚拟化，这是机密计算的基础。Google Cloud和Microsoft Azure提供的(Microsoft Azure)许多(Many)机密计算服务均由我们的技术提供支持。
在消费领域，随着人们在家工作或学习，我们看到需求激增。AMD在安全功能和可管理性方面也提供了帮助。我们的AMD PRO 安全(PRO Security)技术提供额外的安全层，以帮助确保人们可以远程工作和管理他们的数据。
云对 AMD 起到什么作用？公有云在这方面有多重要？(What role does the cloud play for AMD? How important is the public cloud in this regard?)
企业 IT 想要两全其美，能够轻松地在本地数据中心和公共云之间移动工作负载。我们正在与ISV(ISVs)密切合作，例如VMware、Red Hat、Microsoft等，以确保混合云解决方案在我们的处理器上运行时能够很好地为客户服务。
AMD 正在做什么以确保它不会在 AI 竞赛中掉队？(What is AMD doing to ensure it is not left behind in the AI race?)
组织可以使用我们的服务器AMD EPYC处理器来支持 AI 决策或推理工作负载。他们还可以使用我们的AMD Instinct数据中心GPU系列产品来支持 AI 推理以及深度学习训练工作负载。AMD将在 2021 年和未来几年更加关注扩展GPU产品组合；这将是我们在 AI 领域扩展业务的一项令人难以置信的资产。
AMD 的 5G 技术计划是什么？(What are AMD’s plans for 5G technologies?)
在过去几年中，全球电信基础设施部门一直在向软件定义网络过渡。许多电信解决方案现在基于来自国际服务器OEM(OEMs)（如HPE、Dell、Lenovo等）的标准商用现成服务器。我们一直与这些原始设备制造商(OEMs)以及诺基亚(Nokia)和爱立信(Ericsson)等大型电信公司密切合作。我们相信前进的道路只是利用供应商提供的标准服务器来利用软件定义的过渡。
AMD 如何在其产品设计以及与 OEM 和渠道等主要合作伙伴的合作方式中考虑客户的优先事项？(How has AMD factored customer priorities into the design of its products and the way it works with key partners such as OEMs and the channel?)
我们听取了合作伙伴的意见，他们告诉我们需要高性能和能源效率。无论您是在构建数据中心，还是只想延长笔记本电脑的电池寿命，能源效率都是一个关键标准。(Energy)AMD在过去几年中付出了很多努力，以确保我们能够利用最新的制造工艺，例如 7nm 技术。还有AMD的架构设计(AMD)已经从头开始构想减少能源消耗。这意味着我们客户的用电量大幅减少，这对他们的底线和运营管理产生了巨大影响。对于个人来说，这种提高的效率是他们可以使用笔记本电脑更长时间而无需充电的部分原因。
AMD 推动采用其商业技术的战略是什么？(What is AMD’s strategy for pushing the adoption of its commercial technologies?)
最根本的一个是提高认识。一旦(Once)企业尝试了AMD，他们就会意识到优势。我们使用与竞争对手软件完全兼容的 x86 架构，因此最终用户可以无缝迁移到AMD，而无需担心。通过在服务器和客户端范围内交付几代成功的产品，我们成功地建立了市场对AMD长期致力于企业的信心。这带来了好处，因为AMD现在经常被考虑用于概念验证，这导致我们的产品在服务器和企业 IT 客户群中大规模部署。
您正在采取哪些措施来加强与渠道合作伙伴和集成商的关系？(What steps are you taking to strengthen relationships with channel partners and integrators?)
我们意识到整个价值链很重要。我们一直在为我们在全球范围内的渠道组织增加人员，以确保获得一致的良好体验。AMD在客户端和服务器领域与惠普、 HPE、戴尔(Dell)和联想(Lenovo)等主要客户密切合作。我们不是在孤岛中运作，而是通过交谈和比较笔记来确保我们正在尽最大努力照顾我们所有的渠道合作伙伴。这意味着为他们的客户、最终用户和本地集成商提供他们需要的优质内容、正确的激励计划和教育材料。通过OEM组合(OEM)与渠道合作，并通过努力使我们所有的材料和节目成为一流的，我们不断加强与渠道合作伙伴的关系。
对于过去从竞争对手产品转向 AMD 的客户，从 AMD、OEM 或渠道合作伙伴的角度来看，哪些策略有效？(For customers who have switched from a competitor product to AMD in the past, what strategies worked from an AMD, OEM, or channel partner perspective?)
当我们能够在客户中培养一种开放的尝试AMD的意愿时，我们就赢了，因为一旦他们尝试，我们发现他们以非常高的速度切换到基于AMD的系统。(AMD)我们与合作伙伴、原始设备制造商(OEMs)和客户密切合作，以促进概念验证。在某些情况下，我们与软件供应商密切合作，以确保解决方案根据他们的需求进行调整和优化，同时让我们的产品发挥出每一盎司的性能。
您能告诉我们有关 AMD 工作站和服务器产品的路线图吗？明年市场应该关注什么？(Can you tell us anything about the roadmaps for AMD’s workstation and server products? What should the market be looking out for over the next year?)
请留意今年有更多OEM(OEMs)宣布使用AMD技术的工作站，这些工作站基于(AMD)AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO和EPYC处理器。您将在数据中心和云领域看到基于AMD EPYC （霄龙）使用Zen 3架构的新产品，以及来自我们的OEM和云合作伙伴的更广泛的产品和服务组合。
OEM 和 ISV 反馈在 AMD 产品开发中发挥了多大作用？(To what extent does OEM and ISV feedback play a role in the development of AMD products?)
我们密切关注各个层面的客户，从试图解决业务问题的最终用户到与他们密切合作的 OEM。例如，在过去一两年中，我们发布了AMD EPYC服务器处理器的性能优化版本。这些用于客户需要非常高的频率、非常低的延迟和非常高的每个内核整体性能的情况。
我们这样做是为了响应客户对特定用例的反馈，例如CAD和数据自动化应用程序的用户，他们告诉我们这是他们需要的处理器。这就是 AMD在创建新产品时如何适应各个细分市场的需求并倾听我们的OEM和最终用户客户的意见。(OEM)
2021 年各个市场面临的挑战有何不同？在 COVID-19 时代为所有市场制定正确的战略有多难？(How do the challenges differ across markets in 2021 and how difficult is it to get the right strategy for all markets in the age of COVID-19?)
AMD产品组合足够广泛，我们的技术足够强大，可以满足许多不同市场和类别的需求。这为我们和 OEM 提供了响应尽可能广泛的客户需求所需的敏捷性。
在过去的一年中，最让你吃惊或者你学到的最有趣的事情是什么？(What surprised you the most or was the most interesting thing you have learned during the last year?)
最让我惊讶和鼓舞的是人们的适应能力以及 IT 行业在支持他们方面的能力。抵制变革是人类的天性，但看到人们和企业在被迫快速适应时如何迎接挑战，这令人鼓舞。
IT 部门对其组织的支持程度也非常积极。在过去的一年里，看到数字化转型在企业和社会议程中迅速上升，这既令人着迷又令人鼓舞。
我们都适应了在家工作和学习并从 IT 角度调整我们的基础设施的方式非常了不起。正如我之前提到的，世界各地的人们都升级了他们的网络，迁移到云计算，并且比以往任何时候都更多地使用个人生产力应用程序。
在接下来的 12 个月中，您最兴奋的是什么？(What are you most excited about, that lies ahead in the next 12 months?)
我对AMD(AMD)坚持不懈地执行必须是业界最鼓舞人心的路线图感到兴奋。我与AMD的主要竞争对手合作了 24 年多，我加入AMD是因为我看到了该路线图的力量和潜力。我们的独特定位是作为世界上唯一一家在计算能力和图形技术方面都拥有关键核心优势的公司。
AMD’s priorities in 2021: Interview with Roger Benson -
Today, we have a rather unique article for our readers: an interview with Roger Bеnson, one of AMD’s top leaderѕ in thе ΕMEA region. We had a conversation with him aboυt the past year, what he has learned, and AMD’s plans for 2021. If you want to know more aboυt AMD’s aсtivities, both in the commercial аnd enterprise seсtors, and thе company’s short term plаns, give this interview a read:
Meet Roger Benson: Senior Director, Commercial Sales, EMEA
Roger Benson
Roger Benson is one of the industry’s leading experts in semiconductor sales and responsible for AMD’s commercial business in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He has been at the forefront of AMD’s efforts to help partners respond to the pandemic and the fluctuating market conditions it created.
What are AMD’s priorities for the commercial and enterprise sectors in 2021?
The priority is working with our partners to meet rising demand, driven by the dramatic increase in IT usage in the enterprise and public sectors. Now AMD has proven itself to enterprise IT decision-makers, we will demonstrate our long-term commitment and roadmap execution. We are delivering this in 2021 through our “Zen 3” architecture, which has fed into our AMD EPYC server, and Ryzen mobile and desktop product lines. Enterprise IT growth will continue to accelerate over the next 12 months, and we are working towards meeting that demand with our Ryzen and EPYC products. We are also working with our OEM and cloud partners to give them the products and technology they need to capitalize on the continued surge in demand.
What are the biggest differentiators between AMD and its main competitor in the commercial sector?
AMD works closely with our silicon foundry partners to take a leadership position in silicon manufacturing, which is not something the whole industry has managed to do over the past year. While some competitors have faced significant difficulties, AMD has led the industry with our 7nm chips in our server and client products.
The server space demands core computing performance and a balanced system. Our products are designed to balance and optimize core performance, memory bandwidth, and IO bandwidth performance to suit our customers’ workloads and application needs. Our focus is on how to help customers solve business problems from the first conceptual design to the final product.
Has the pandemic changed the market for data centers, server computing hardware, and associated technologies?
I have seen and read about digital channels, rather than the physical channels businesses had relied on before the pandemic, becoming the fastest-growing revenue source for many companies in this new normal.
Businesses have had to adapt by enabling remote working across their entire operations, which often requires new IT infrastructure and solutions to ensure business continuity and employee productivity is maintained. The most relevant enabling technologies here are cloud computing and cybersecurity. AMD is extremely well prepared to address both areas, now and in the future. The market needs more computing power and we can help provide it for on-premise data centers and the cloud.
Many of our customers have upgraded their networking lines to make sure that they have good enough infrastructure between the company and the employees’ homes. We have also seen a surge in client demand for new desktop and laptop PC products. We expect this demand and acceleration in the use of cloud computing will continue through 2021.
It really hit home for people during all the disruption that the quality of their work and collaboration demands the latest and greatest technology. From the smoothness of the video you’re making to the productivity of the applications you're using, it all depends on performance. We have seen strong demand for mid-range and high-end products as a result.
AMD has engaged with customers in all these areas and brought a new generation of processors to market that offer a suitable solution for everyone, from consumer and business clients to the latest data center and cloud applications.
What has AMD been doing in the fight against COVID-19? Who is it partnering with?
Our chips are embedded in several of the ventilators helping COVID-19 patients recover, and we have made donations to high-performance computing institutions to support research into the virus. We have also donated technology and hardware to Cambridge University in the UK, the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre and Stuttgart High-Performance Computing Centre in Germany, and to the GENCI research institution in France.
AMD COVID-19 High Performance Computing (HPC) Fund
Across AMD’s commercial product lines and segments, workstations, laptops, and server CPUs, as well as workstation GPUs, what are the long-term trends transforming the industry? What will their impact be?
AMD is focused on providing winning solutions on-premise and in the cloud. For the on-premise segment, we work with traditional server vendors, such as HPE, Dell, Lenovo, Supermicro, and many others. Together with our partners, we produce great hardware infrastructure solutions to meet enterprises on-site deployment needs.
Regarding the cloud, we have worked with global providers, such as AWS, Microsoft, Azure, Google Cloud, IBM, and Oracle. We are also working with EMEA cloud providers, such as OVH, Hetzner, Ionos, Scaleway, and others. AMD is focusing on traditional cloud architectures and hybrid solutions, and we are working closely with these providers, as well as Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) such as VMware, to enable the highest levels of cloud security.
Cybersecurity is a key focus area for AMD which extends from our server product line through to our client product line. We offer secure encrypted virtualization, which is the foundation for confidential compute. Many of the confidential compute services that Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure offer are powered by our technology.
In the consumer space, we have seen a massive surge in demand as people work or learn from home. AMD helps here too in terms of security features and manageability. Our AMD PRO Security technologies offer extra layers of security to help ensure people can work remotely and manage their data.
What role does the cloud play for AMD? How important is the public cloud in this regard?
Enterprise IT wants the best of both worlds, to be able to easily move workloads between on-premise data centers and the public cloud. We are collaborating closely with ISVs, such as VMware, Red Hat, Microsoft, and others, to make sure hybrid cloud solutions work well for customers when running on our processors.
What is AMD doing to ensure it is not left behind in the AI race?
Organizations can use our server AMD EPYC processors to support AI decision-making or inference workloads. They can also use our AMD Instinct data center GPU family of products to support AI inference, as well as deep learning training workloads. There will be a greater focus from AMD in 2021 and in the coming years on expanding that GPU portfolio; this will be an incredible asset for expanding our business in the AI segment.
What are AMD’s plans for 5G technologies?
The global telco infrastructure sector has been transitioning to software-defined networks over the past few years. Many telco solutions are now based on standard commercial off-the-shelf servers from international server OEMs such as HPE, Dell, Lenovo, and others. We have been working very closely with these OEMs and large telco players such as Nokia and Ericsson. We believe the way forward is simply to take advantage of that software-defined transition using standard servers from vendors.
How has AMD factored customer priorities into the design of its products and the way it works with key partners such as OEMs and the channel?
We have listened to partners who told us there was a need for high-performance together with energy efficiency. Energy efficiency is a key criterion whether you are building a data center or whether you just want longer battery life from your laptop. AMD has put a lot of effort in over the past several years to make sure we are taking advantage of the latest manufacturing processes, such as 7nm technology. There is also the architectural design that AMD has conceived from the ground up to reduce energy consumption. This represents a massive reduction in electricity consumption for our customers, which has a dramatic effect on their bottom line and their operational management. For individuals, this increased efficiency is part of the reason they can use their laptops for much longer without having to recharge.
What is AMD’s strategy for pushing the adoption of its commercial technologies?
The most fundamental one is raising awareness. Once enterprises try AMD, they realize the advantages. We use an x86 architecture that is completely software compatible with our competitors, so end users can seamlessly move to AMD without having to worry. We have successfully built confidence in the market that AMD is committed to the enterprise for the long term, by delivering several generations of successful products across server and client ranges. This is paying dividends as AMD is now regularly considered for proofs of concept which leads to volume deployments of our products across servers and in fleets of clients for enterprise IT.
What steps are you taking to strengthen relationships with channel partners and integrators?
We realize the full value chain is important. We have been increasing staffing for our channel organizations worldwide to ensure a uniformly good experience. AMD works closely with its key customers like HP, HPE, Dell, and Lenovo across both the client and server spaces. Rather than operate in silos, we talk and compare notes to make sure we are doing the best we can to take care of all our channel partners. This means providing the quality content they need, the right incentive programs, and the educational materials for their customers, end-users, and local integrators. Through a combination of OEM partnerships with the channel and by striving to make all our materials and programs best in class, we are continually strengthening our relationships with channel partners.
For customers who have switched from a competitor product to AMD in the past, what strategies worked from an AMD, OEM, or channel partner perspective?
We win when we can foster an open-minded willingness to try AMD in customers because once they try, we find that they switch to AMD-based systems at a very high rate. We work closely with partners, OEMs, and customers to facilitate proofs of concept. In some cases, we work closely with software vendors to make sure the solution is tuned and optimized for their needs while getting every ounce of performance out of our products.
Can you tell us anything about the roadmaps for AMD’s workstation and server products? What should the market be looking out for over the next year?
Keep a lookout for more OEMs announcing workstations using AMD technology this year, based on AMD Ryzen Threadripper PRO and EPYC processors. You will see new products based on AMD EPYC using the Zen 3 architecture in the data center and cloud sectors, as well as broader product and services portfolios from our OEM and cloud partners.
To what extent does OEM and ISV feedback play a role in the development of AMD products?
We listen closely to our customers at all levels, from end-users who are trying to solve business problems to OEMs who are working closely with them too. For example, in the last year or two, we have released performance-optimized versions of our AMD EPYC server processors. These are being used for situations where customers need very high frequency, very low latency, and very high overall performance per core.
We did this in response to feedback from customers for specific use cases, like users of CAD and data-automation applications who told us that this is what they needed from a processor. This is how AMD tunes into the needs of individual segments and listens to our OEM and end-user customers when creating new products.
How do the challenges differ across markets in 2021 and how difficult is it to get the right strategy for all markets in the age of COVID-19?
The AMD portfolio is broad enough and our technology robust enough to meet the needs of many different markets and categories. This gives us and OEMs the agility needed to respond to the widest possible range of customer needs.
What surprised you the most or was the most interesting thing you have learned during the last year?
What surprised and encouraged me most is people’s adaptability and how capable the IT industry is at supporting them. It is human nature to resist change, but it has been inspiring to see how, when forced to adapt at speed, people and businesses have risen to the challenge.
The extent to which IT departments have supported their organizations has also been extremely positive. It is as fascinating as it is encouraging to see digital transformation rocket up the corporate and social agenda over the past year.
The way that we have all adapted to home working and learning and adjusted our infrastructure from an IT perspective has been remarkable. As I mentioned before, people everywhere have upgraded their networks, moved to cloud computing, and are making greater use of personal productivity apps than ever before.
What are you most excited about, that lies ahead in the next 12 months?
I am excited about AMD’s relentless execution against what must be the industry’s most inspiring roadmap. I worked with AMD’s principal competitor for just over 24 years, and I joined AMD because I saw the strength and the potential of that roadmap. We are uniquely positioned as the only company in the world to have key core strengths in both computing capabilities as well as graphics technology.
