In response to the concerns, Lisa Su assured Tiny Corp of AMD's commitment to resolving the firmware issues, although there was no commitment made towards open-sourcing the GPU firmware. Tiny Corp, known for its tinygrad neural network framework, aims to provide PetaFLOPS-level AI performance at a reduced cost by utilizing consumer-grade GPUs in their TinyBox servers. These servers incorporate the Radeon RX 7900 XTX GPUs and utilize AMD's ROCm programming stack, which supports open-source development but has shown compatibility issues since its recent extension to consumer GPUs.
The dialogue between Tiny Corp and AMD escalated when Tiny Corp expressed dissatisfaction with the firmware updates provided by AMD, which failed to fully resolve the critical issues. The startup's public communications expressed urgency and frustration, highlighting the impact of these issues on their pre-order customers and production schedules. Tiny Corp also contemplated shifting to alternative solutions, including Intel GPUs and software, and mentioned purchasing Acer BiFrost Arc A770 cards as potential replacements.
Lisa Su's engagement with Tiny Corp underscores AMD's focus on collaboration and customer feedback to enhance their solutions. This situation sheds light on the broader debate within the tech industry regarding the benefits of open-sourcing firmware to facilitate broader community engagement and more rapid issue resolution.