Pensando’s dis­tri­bu­ted ser­vices plat­form expands AMD pro­duct port­fo­lio with a high-per­for­mance packet pro­ces­sor and soft­ware stack alre­a­dy deploy­ed at sca­le across cloud and enter­pri­se cus­to­mers inclu­ding Gold­man Sachs, IBM Cloud, Micro­soft Azu­re and Ora­cle Cloud

AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) today announ­ced a defi­ni­ti­ve agree­ment to acqui­re Pen­san­do for appro­xi­m­ate­ly $1.9 bil­li­on befo­re working capi­tal and other adjus­t­ments. Pensando’s dis­tri­bu­ted ser­vices plat­form includes a high-per­for­mance, ful­ly pro­gramma­ble packet pro­ces­sor and com­pre­hen­si­ve soft­ware stack that acce­le­ra­te net­wor­king, secu­ri­ty, sto­rage and other ser­vices for cloud, enter­pri­se and edge applications.

“To build a lea­ding-edge data cen­ter with the best per­for­mance, secu­ri­ty, fle­xi­bi­li­ty and lowest total cost of owner­ship requi­res a wide ran­ge of com­pu­te engi­nes,” said Dr. Lisa Su, AMD chair and CEO. “All major cloud and OEM cus­to­mers have adopted EPYC pro­ces­sors to power their data cen­ter offe­rings. Today, with our acqui­si­ti­on of Pen­san­do, we add a lea­ding dis­tri­bu­ted ser­vices plat­form to our high-per­for­mance CPU, GPU, FPGA and adap­ti­ve SoC port­fo­lio. The Pen­san­do team brings world-class exper­ti­se and a pro­ven track record of inno­va­ti­on at the chip, soft­ware and plat­form level which expands our abili­ty to offer lea­der­ship solu­ti­ons for our cloud, enter­pri­se and edge customers.”

Pensando’s pro­ducts are alre­a­dy deploy­ed at sca­le across cloud and enter­pri­se cus­to­mers, inclu­ding Gold­man Sachs, IBM Cloud, Micro­soft Azu­re and Ora­cle Cloud. Pensando’s high-per­for­mance, high­ly sca­lable dis­tri­bu­ted ser­vices plat­form includes a pro­gramma­ble packet pro­ces­sor that can be dis­tri­bu­ted throug­hout a net­work to effi­ci­ent­ly acce­le­ra­te mul­ti­ple infra­struc­tu­re ser­vices simul­ta­neous­ly, off­loa­ding workloads from the CPU and incre­asing over­all sys­tem per­for­mance. Com­bi­ned with Pensando’s sys­tem soft­ware stack, the plat­form offers unpre­ce­den­ted per­for­mance, sca­le, fle­xi­bi­li­ty and secu­ri­ty. In real-world cloud deploy­ments, Pensando’s solu­ti­on demons­tra­tes bet­ween 8x and 13x grea­ter per­for­mance com­pared to com­pe­ti­ti­ve solutions.

“We are exci­ted to join the AMD fami­ly. Our shared cul­tures of inno­va­ti­on, excel­lence and relent­less focus on part­ners and cus­to­mers make this an ide­al com­bi­na­ti­on. Tog­e­ther, we have the talent and tools to deli­ver on our cus­to­mers’ visi­on for the future of com­pu­ting,” said Pen­san­do CEO Prem Jain. “In less than five years Pen­san­do has assem­bled a best-in-class engi­nee­ring team that are experts in buil­ding sys­tems tog­e­ther with a rich, deep eco­sys­tem of part­ners and cus­to­mers who have curr­ent­ly deploy­ed over 100,000 Pen­san­do plat­forms into pro­duc­tion. Joi­ning tog­e­ther with AMD will help acce­le­ra­te growth in our core busi­ness and enable us to pur­sue a much lar­ger cus­to­mer base across more markets.”

“Indus­try lea­der­ship is based on cat­ching busi­ness model dis­rup­ti­ons enab­led by new tech­no­lo­gies,” said John Cham­bers, chair of the board of Pen­san­do. “Pen­san­do is built upon strong cus­to­mer rela­ti­onships and a solu­ti­on that is at least two years ahead in cloud, edge and enter­pri­se. For exam­p­le, the per­for­mance and sca­le of Pensando’s dis­tri­bu­ted ser­vices plat­form is 8x-13x of the lar­gest cloud pro­vi­der and uses less power. Pensando’s smart swit­ching archi­tec­tu­re has 100x the sca­le, 10x the per­for­mance at one-third the cost of owner­ship of any com­pa­ra­ble pro­ducts in the enter­pri­se mar­ket. Pensando’s lea­der­ship posi­ti­on in soft­ware-defi­ned cloud, com­pu­te, net­wor­king, secu­ri­ty and sto­rage ser­vices as part of the much lar­ger AMD port­fo­lio is in my opi­ni­on a per­fect fit to shape the data cen­ter com­pu­ting land­scape for the next decade.”

CEO Prem Jain and the Pen­san­do team will join AMD as part of the Data Cen­ter Solu­ti­ons Group, led by AMD Seni­or Vice Pre­si­dent and Gene­ral Mana­ger For­rest Nor­rod. Pen­san­do will remain focu­sed on exe­cu­ting their pro­duct and tech­no­lo­gy road­maps, now with addi­tio­nal sca­le to acce­le­ra­te their busi­ness and address gro­wing mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties across a broa­der num­ber of customers.

The acqui­si­ti­on is expec­ted to clo­se in the second quar­ter of 2022, fol­lo­wing satis­fac­tion of cus­to­ma­ry clo­sing con­di­ti­ons inclu­ding appr­oval under the Hart-Scott-Rodi­no Anti­trust Impro­ve­ments Act of 1976.
Advisors

DBO Part­ners is acting as finan­cial advi­sor to AMD and Lat­ham & Wat­kins LLP is ser­ving as its legal advi­sor. Cen­ter­view Part­ners is acting as finan­cial advi­sor to Pen­san­do and Wil­son Sonsi­ni Good­rich & Rosa­ti is ser­ving as legal coun­sel for Pensando.
Sup­port­ing Cus­to­mer Quotes

Gold­man Sachs

“Appli­ca­ti­on secu­ri­ty is a key issue for the finan­cial ser­vices indus­try and our cli­ents,” said Josh Matheus, mana­ging direc­tor, Tech­no­lo­gy, Gold­man Sachs. “Pensando’s east-west secu­ri­ty inno­va­ti­on has enab­led us to seg­ment our data cen­ter net­work archi­tec­tu­re to pro­vi­de hyper-sca­le class tech­no­lo­gy and per­for­mance that is unpar­al­le­led across the sector.”

Hew­lett Packard Enterprise

“Hew­lett Packard Enter­pri­se was an ear­ly part­ner of Pen­san­do becau­se we shared the visi­on that the world would beco­me far more dis­tri­bu­ted, and that enter­pri­ses would need edge-to-cloud archi­tec­tures to acce­le­ra­te their insights and out­co­mes,” said Anto­nio Neri, pre­si­dent and CEO, HPE. “Tog­e­ther, we brought the cloud expe­ri­ence to the edge with the industry’s first dis­tri­bu­ted ser­vices switch, and we dro­ve inno­va­ti­on across the data cen­ter by inte­gra­ting future-pro­of Pen­san­do dis­tri­bu­ted net­work and secu­ri­ty ser­vices into our ser­ver port­fo­lio and HPE Green­La­ke cloud ser­vices offe­ring. We look for­ward to acce­le­ra­ting the deve­lo­p­ment of the­se tech­no­lo­gies with our long-stan­ding part­ner AMD, whom we con­gra­tu­la­te on this stra­te­gic acquisition.”

Micro­soft Azure

“Pen­san­do System’s full stack solu­ti­on, com­ple­te with a P4 pro­gramma­ble pro­ces­sor and hyper sca­le soft­ware has enab­led Micro­soft Azu­re to rapidly aug­ment its net­wor­king and secu­ri­ty ser­vices impro­ving per­for­mance, laten­cy, and sca­le,” said Girish Bab­la­ni, cor­po­ra­te vice pre­si­dent, Micro­soft Azu­re. “We have seen a 40x impro­ve­ment in over­all cloud based con­nec­tion rela­ted per­for­mance. Pen­san­do deli­ver­ed this in less than 12 months. This part­ner­ship has enab­led a trans­for­ma­tio­nal “limit­less net­wor­king” shift that will ensu­re our cus­to­mers have access to the hig­hest per­forming pro­ducts and ser­vices they expect from Micro­soft Azure.”

Ora­cle Cloud

“By part­ne­ring with Pen­san­do, Ora­cle Cloud Infra­struc­tu­re (OCI) has deve­lo­ped an indus­try lea­ding Soft­ware Defi­ned Net­wor­king stack, deli­ve­ring infra­struc­tu­re fea­tures to Ora­cle Cloud cus­to­mers, that have the best pri­ce to per­for­mance cha­rac­te­ristics in the cloud indus­try,” said Clay Magouyrk, exe­cu­ti­ve vice pre­si­dent, Ora­cle Cloud Infra­struc­tu­re. “Pensando’s P4 pro­gramma­ble plat­form enables OCI to con­ti­nuous­ly inno­va­te and deli­ver secu­re and inex­pen­si­ve net­work ser­vices with high velo­ci­ty. The abili­ty to rapidly add new fea­tures using a pro­gramma­ble hard­ware plat­form will help OCI leapfrog its cloud com­pe­ti­tors. Pensando’s engi­nee­ring team, con­sis­ting of many indus­try experts, has col­la­bo­ra­ted very suc­cessful­ly with OCI engi­nee­ring, and have ope­ra­ted at times as OCI’s exten­si­on team. OCI views Pen­san­do as a key stra­te­gic part­ner in achie­ving our goal of being the best infra­struc­tu­re plat­form in the cloud industry.”
About AMD

For more than 50 years AMD has dri­ven inno­va­ti­on in high-per­for­mance com­pu­ting, gra­phics and visua­liza­ti­on tech­no­lo­gies. AMD employees are focu­sed on buil­ding lea­der­ship high-per­for­mance and adap­ti­ve pro­ducts that push the boun­da­ries of what is pos­si­ble. Bil­li­ons of peo­p­le, lea­ding For­tu­ne 500 busi­nesses and cut­ting-edge sci­en­ti­fic rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons around the world rely on AMD tech­no­lo­gy dai­ly to impro­ve how they live, work and play. For more infor­ma­ti­on about how AMD is enab­ling today and inspi­ring tomor­row, visit the AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) web­site, blog, Face­book and Twit­ter pages.
About Pensando

Foun­ded in 2017, Pen­san­do Sys­tems is pio­nee­ring dis­tri­bu­ted com­pu­ting desi­gned for the New Edge, powe­ring soft­ware-defi­ned cloud, com­pu­te, net­wor­king, sto­rage and secu­ri­ty ser­vices to trans­form exis­ting archi­tec­tures into the secu­re, ultra-fast envi­ron­ments deman­ded by next gene­ra­ti­on appli­ca­ti­ons. For more infor­ma­ti­on, plea­se visit pensando.io

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT

This press release con­ta­ins for­ward-loo­king state­ments con­cer­ning Advan­ced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) such as the anti­ci­pa­ted bene­fits from the acqui­si­ti­on of Pen­san­do by AMD; and the expec­ted timing of the clo­sing of the Pen­san­do acqui­si­ti­on, which are made pur­su­ant to the Safe Har­bor pro­vi­si­ons of the Pri­va­te Secu­ri­ties Liti­ga­ti­on Reform Act of 1995. For­ward-loo­king state­ments are com­mon­ly iden­ti­fied by words such as “would,” “may,” “expects,” “belie­ves,” “plans,” “intends,” “pro­jects” and other terms with simi­lar mea­ning. Inves­tors are cau­tio­ned that the for­ward-loo­king state­ments in this press release are based on cur­rent beliefs, assump­ti­ons and expec­ta­ti­ons, speak only as of the date of this press release and invol­ve risks and uncer­tain­ties that could cau­se actu­al results to dif­fer mate­ri­al­ly from cur­rent expec­ta­ti­ons. Such state­ments are sub­ject to cer­tain known and unknown risks and uncer­tain­ties, many of which are dif­fi­cult to pre­dict and gene­ral­ly bey­ond AMD’s con­trol, that could cau­se actu­al results and other future events to dif­fer mate­ri­al­ly from tho­se expres­sed in, or impli­ed or pro­jec­ted by, the for­ward-loo­king infor­ma­ti­on and state­ments. Mate­ri­al fac­tors that could cau­se actu­al results to dif­fer mate­ri­al­ly from cur­rent expec­ta­ti­ons include, wit­hout limi­ta­ti­on, the fol­lo­wing: Intel Corporation’s domi­nan­ce of the micro­pro­ces­sor mar­ket and its aggres­si­ve busi­ness prac­ti­ces; glo­bal eco­no­mic uncer­tain­ty; loss of a signi­fi­cant cus­to­mer; impact of the COVID-19 pan­de­mic on AMD’s busi­ness, finan­cial con­di­ti­on and results of ope­ra­ti­ons; com­pe­ti­ti­ve mar­kets in which AMD’s pro­ducts are sold; mar­ket con­di­ti­ons of the indus­tries in which AMD pro­ducts are sold; cycli­cal natu­re of the semi­con­duc­tor indus­try; quar­ter­ly and sea­so­nal sales pat­terns; AMD’s abili­ty to ade­qua­te­ly pro­tect its tech­no­lo­gy or other intellec­tu­al pro­per­ty; unfa­vorable cur­ren­cy exch­an­ge rate fluc­tua­tions; abili­ty of third par­ty manu­fac­tu­r­ers to manu­fac­tu­re AMD’s pro­ducts on a time­ly basis in suf­fi­ci­ent quan­ti­ties and using com­pe­ti­ti­ve tech­no­lo­gies; avai­la­bi­li­ty of essen­ti­al equip­ment, mate­ri­als, sub­stra­tes or manu­fac­tu­ring pro­ces­ses; abili­ty to achie­ve expec­ted manu­fac­tu­ring yields for AMD’s pro­ducts; AMD’s abili­ty to intro­du­ce pro­ducts on a time­ly basis with expec­ted fea­tures and per­for­mance levels; AMD’s abili­ty to gene­ra­te reve­nue from its semi-cus­tom SoC pro­ducts; poten­ti­al secu­ri­ty vul­nerabi­li­ties; poten­ti­al secu­ri­ty inci­dents inclu­ding IT outa­ges, data loss, data brea­ches and cyber-attacks; uncer­tain­ties invol­ving the orde­ring and ship­ment of AMD’s pro­ducts; AMD’s reli­ance on third-par­ty intellec­tu­al pro­per­ty to design and intro­du­ce new pro­ducts in a time­ly man­ner; AMD’s reli­ance on third-par­ty com­pa­nies for design, manu­fac­tu­re and sup­p­ly of mother­boards, soft­ware and other com­pu­ter plat­form com­pon­ents; AMD’s reli­ance on Micro­soft and other soft­ware ven­dors’ sup­port to design and deve­lop soft­ware to run on AMD’s pro­ducts; AMD’s reli­ance on third-par­ty dis­tri­bu­tors and add-in-board part­ners; impact of modi­fi­ca­ti­on or inter­rup­ti­on of AMD’s inter­nal busi­ness pro­ces­ses and infor­ma­ti­on sys­tems; com­pa­ti­bi­li­ty of AMD’s pro­ducts with some or all indus­try-stan­dard soft­ware and hard­ware; cos­ts rela­ted to defec­ti­ve pro­ducts; effi­ci­en­cy of AMD’s sup­p­ly chain; AMD’s abili­ty to rely on third par­ty sup­p­ly-chain logi­stics func­tions; AMD’s abili­ty to effec­tively con­trol sales of its pro­ducts on the gray mar­ket; impact of govern­ment actions and regu­la­ti­ons such as export admi­nis­tra­ti­on regu­la­ti­ons, tariffs and trade pro­tec­tion mea­su­res; AMD’s abili­ty to rea­li­ze its defer­red tax assets; poten­ti­al tax lia­bi­li­ties; cur­rent and future claims and liti­ga­ti­on; impact of envi­ron­men­tal laws, con­flict mine­rals-rela­ted pro­vi­si­ons and other laws or regu­la­ti­ons; impact of acqui­si­ti­ons, joint ven­tures and/or invest­ments on AMD’s busi­ness and abili­ty to inte­gra­te acqui­red busi­nesses, inclu­ding Xilinx, Inc. (Xilinx); the impact of the Xilinx mer­ger on AMD’s busi­ness; impact of any impair­ment of the com­bi­ned company’s assets on the com­bi­ned company’s finan­cial posi­ti­on and results of ope­ra­ti­on; rest­ric­tions impo­sed by agree­ments gover­ning AMD’s notes and the revol­ving cre­dit faci­li­ty; AMD’s indeb­ted­ness; AMD’s abili­ty to gene­ra­te suf­fi­ci­ent cash to meet its working capi­tal requi­re­ments or gene­ra­te suf­fi­ci­ent reve­nue and ope­ra­ting cash flow to make all of its plan­ned R&D or stra­te­gic invest­ments; poli­ti­cal, legal, eco­no­mic risks and natu­ral dis­as­ters; future impairm­ents of good­will and tech­no­lo­gy licen­se purcha­ses; AMD’s abili­ty to attract and retain qua­li­fied per­son­nel; AMD’s stock pri­ce vola­ti­li­ty; and world­wi­de poli­ti­cal con­di­ti­ons. Inves­tors are urged to review in detail the risks and uncer­tain­ties in AMD’s Secu­ri­ties and Exch­an­ge Com­mis­si­on filings, inclu­ding but not limi­t­ed to AMD’s most recent reports on Forms 10‑K and 10‑Q.