Who is Lisa Su?
Lisa Su is a semiconductor engineer and AMD’s chair, president and chief executive officer. Her career combines electronic-device research, leadership of development teams and business strategy in processors, high-performance computing and artificial intelligence. [1]
Origins and education at MIT
Born in Taiwan and raised in Queens, New York, she studied electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning her bachelor’s degree in 1990, master’s in 1991 and doctorate in 1994. [2]
She previously attended the Bronx High School of Science. During her studies she joined the UROP programme in Hank Smith’s laboratory and undertook internships at Analog Devices. This combination of education and experimentation directed her towards semiconductor devices. [6]
Her doctoral thesis, Extreme-submicrometer silicon-on-insulator (SOI) MOSFETs, was submitted in 1994 under Dimitri Antoniadis and James Chung. It concerns the engineering of very small transistors on silicon-and-insulator structures, the technical foundation from which she developed her career. [5]
Texas Instruments, IBM and Freescale
She started at Texas Instruments in 1994 and moved to IBM the following year. There she worked in device physics, became technical assistant to the chief executive in 2000 and reached vice president of the semiconductor research and development centre in 2006. [8]
In 2007 she joined Freescale as chief technology officer, responsible for research and technology strategy. In 2008 she took charge of Networking and Multimedia, covering communications and embedded application processors. The transition expanded her work from the laboratory into engineering, markets and business management. [7]
Joining AMD and becoming CEO
She joined AMD in January 2012 to lead its global business units. She became chief operating officer in July 2014 and added the board chair role in February 2022. Her internal career connects product planning, execution and corporate governance. [10]
On 8 October 2014 she succeeded Rory Read as president and CEO. The company described her previous COO responsibilities as integrating business units, sales and operations. The appointment gave her responsibility for the whole organisation, rather than a single laboratory or processor family. [9]
Zen, Ryzen and the return to servers
Ryzen 7 arrived in March 2017 using the Zen architecture. AMD said the project had required four years of development and over two million engineering hours. Su headed the company that brought these eight-core, sixteen-thread processors to the personal-computer market. [11]
In June 2017 AMD launched EPYC 7000 for data centres, supported by server manufacturers and operating-system providers. The milestone extended its high-performance strategy from personal computers to enterprise and cloud infrastructure, with a platform and ecosystem of its own. [12]
Xilinx and Pensando: expanding the portfolio
AMD completed its all-stock acquisition of Xilinx on 14 February 2022. It added programmable FPGA devices, adaptive systems, AI engines and software. Su presented the combination as a way to address more computing requirements across data centres, embedded systems and connected devices. [13]
AMD completed its purchase of Pensando on 26 May 2022 in a transaction valued at approximately $1.9 billion. Its platform added data processing units and software for distributed services, complementing CPUs and GPUs in enterprise and cloud customers’ infrastructure. [14]
Frontier and scientific computing
In May 2022, Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Frontier exceeded the exascale barrier in the HPL benchmark at approximately 1.1 exaflops. The system combined HPE technology with AMD CPUs and accelerators. This was a measured result of industrial and scientific collaboration, rather than a guaranteed speed for every application. [15]
Artificial intelligence infrastructure
At Advancing AI 2025, AMD presented Instinct MI350 accelerators, developments in ROCm software and its rack-scale systems roadmap. Su’s stated strategy combines components, programming tools and partners to support AI development and deployment on an interoperable platform. [4]
In October 2026 the company announced Helion, a reference design for AI-agent infrastructure with CPU and GPU configurations tailored to different workloads. Availability with partners was planned for November 2026: the announcement describes a system proposal and schedule, rather than establishing that every installation is operational. [16]
The World Labs transaction represents another direction for growth. AMD reported to the SEC an agreement signed on 26 September 2026 to acquire the company for approximately $8.2 billion in shares, subject to adjustments. The filing records an acquisition commitment, rather than a completed transaction. [17]
Experience on corporate boards
Cisco appointed her to its board on 27 January 2020, highlighting her business and semiconductor experience. This oversight role was separate from her executive work at AMD, connecting her with another major digital-infrastructure company. [24]
Cisco’s 2024 proxy statement identifies her as a former director, serving until December 2023. This position therefore belongs to her professional history rather than her current responsibilities. [23]
Awards and professional recognition
In 2021 she received the IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal, becoming the first woman to win the award. She donated its $20,000 cash prize to the IEEE Women in Engineering Fund. The recognition brings together her technical career and semiconductor-industry leadership. [19]
The Franklin Institute awarded her its 2024 Bower Award for Business Leadership for leading AMD. It highlighted the company’s transformation, computing solutions and her support for diversity and women in technology. [18]
She received the National Medal of Science in 2026. [22]
Supporting research and engineering education
In 2018 she established an MIT fellowship fund for female graduate researchers in nanotechnology. In 2022 the building housing MIT.nano was named after her. Its shared nanoscale-research laboratories connect her philanthropic support with the field in which she trained. [20]
In her May 2026 MIT commencement address, she advocated choosing difficult problems, experimenting and learning from failures. She also argued that deciding which problems to address and taking responsibility for consequences remain human tasks. This is her public perspective on engineering and AI, presented to a new generation of professionals. [21]
