Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is targeting mobile workers with the launch Monday of a new Radeon Pro graphics card for data centers that’s designed to deliver powerful visualization in the cloud for remote workloads.

The Radeon Pro V340 graphics card for data center visualization workloads is aimed at jobs such as computer-aided design, desktop-as-a-service and graphics rendering, the company said. It comes with two Vega-based graphics processing units and is powered by the company’s MxGPU Technology to provide high performance and high user density for virtualized environments, which means more than one user can share a single graphics card at the same time.

Normally these kinds of jobs are done using high-powered laptops with the necessary hardware built inside, but such machines can be prohibitively expensive, particularly for freelance workers. So AMD thinks it might be better to equip data centers with the necessary visualization hardware and run these kinds of applications from the cloud instead.

“Rather than buying expensive workstations, why not run expensive apps in the cloud and deliver the results to a thin and light laptop or tablet,” AMD’s director of cloud graphics Michael DeNeffe said in a media briefing.

AMD’s new graphics card will enable new workstation workloads in the data center, said Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. He said that besides being more cost-effective, the Radeon Pro V340 graphics card may also appeal to designers concerned about security, while it also provides flexibility to work anywhere and share resources across the globe during on and off hours.

“AMD’s card is special in that it doesn’t require expensive software licensing and also highly performant as it does a lot of the virtualization functions on-chip,” Moorhead said. The company said the Radeon Pro V340 will be available in the fourth quarter.

Shares in AMD rose more than 5 percent today on that and other news, to $25.26, well over double their level at the start of this year.

Details of the chip came during an unexpectedly busy news day for AMD, which also announced it would be partnering with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. on its 7-nanometer processors going forward. The announcement came after AMD said it was splitting from its longtime partner GlobalFoundries Inc., which said Monday it was suspending the manufacture of 7nm chips to focus on its 14/12nm platform that it said is more relevant to high-growth markets.

That means TSMC will now be charged with manufacturing AMD’s Zen 2 central processing unit core and Navi GPU chips, which are a central component of its plans to take on Intel Corp. and Nvidia Corp. in the data center. However, AMD will continue to use GlobalFoundries for its 14/12nm processors, which include the current-generation Ryzeon, Radeon and EPYC chips.

Moorhead said the switch was not that big a deal, as all of AMD’s 7nm parts were already designed to be manufactured at TSMC. So the 7nm chips, when they’re finally shipped, could well give AMD a competitive advantage over its rivals, he said.

“AMD is the only ‘big core’ vendor who has shown off 7nm parts, specifically a server and graphics chip,” Moorhead said. “AMD should be the first vendor shipping a 7nm server part and a 7nm data center GPU, which will make the competitive environment more interesting, for sure.”

AMD also found time to announce an executive reshuffle Monday. It said it’s promoting Client General Manager Saeid Moshkelani to the role of senior vice president and general manager of client compute in place of previous incumbent Jim Anderson, who has left to become the chief executive officer of rival firm Lattice Semiconductor Corp.

Photo: AMD