AMD and Sony form deep technology collaboration called Amethyst

Although the PlayStation 5 Pro console was released in early November, Sony has only now published a full presentation from Mark Cerny, who delved into the technical aspects of the new device. So we’ve learned the details of the graphics chip, whose architecture Cerny calls RDNA 2.x, as it contains elements of both RDNA 2 and RDNA 3, as well as ray tracing from RDNA 4 and its own architecture for machine learning. It is machine learning that will be discussed in detail later in the presentation.

However, perhaps the most interesting announcement was at the end of the video, when Cerny introduced an initiative called “Amethyst.” This is a newly formed technology collaboration between Sony and AMD that focuses on both hardware and software. The goal is to create a new architecture for machine learning and artificial intelligence computing not only for the PlayStation, but also for many other devices using AMD hardware.

The second goal is to create a so-called CNN (convolutional neural network) for use in games, again for the needs of PlayStation and AMD. Earlier in the presentation, Cerny talked about image generation, noise reduction and other AI applications, for example, so it is possible that Sony will want to prepare such technologies for the PlayStation 6.

In any case, we will have to wait for them, since Cerny emphasized that we will see the results of cooperation in a few years. Machine learning fascinates him and he believes that this is the area where development will move forward the most, but at the same time the projects are very demanding. In an interview with Digital Foundry, he called upscaling PSSR the most difficult project of his life.