You're right, they are behind, but to say that nobody is using it, is not truthful. AMD HPC clusters are being used [0] and [1] for AI/ML.
The larger issue is that AMD has only been building HPC clusters for the last period of time. Now, with the release of MI300x, we have Azure and Oracle coming online with them now. Disclosure, my business is also building a MI300x super computer as well, with the express goal of enabling more access to developers.
[0] https://defensescoop.com/2023/08/23/navys-new-25m-supercompu...
Funny how you can immediately tell when the business people made these decisions and not the tech people. This is exactly what I would have expected from an organization like the Navy. On paper it does sound great and the Navy bean counters probably loved this. But they are in for a rough awakening.
In a few months, my own cluster will be nearly 2x that size, with better networking, and we aren't spending anywhere near $25m.
Disclosure: building my own supercomputer business around AMD hardware
The numbers I gave aren't worthless, nor does it take 5x the amount of work. I also don't think that going with a single source for hardware for all of AI is very smart either, especially given the fact that there are serious supply shortages from that single vendor. No fortune 100 would put all their eggs in one basket and even if it was 5x the work, it is worth it.
If you had worked with ML, you'd know that this is not true. It's actually more like the opposite. It also has nothing to do with the chips themselves. Things don't magically work "because GPU", they work because manufacturers spend the time getting their drivers and ecosystems right. That's why for example noone is using AMD GPUs for ML, despite them offering more compute per dollar on paper. Getting the software stack to the point of Nvidia/CUDA, where things really do "just work", is an enormous undertaking. And as someone who has been researching ML for more than a decade now, I can tell you Nvidia also didn't get these things right in the beginning. That's the reason why they have no real competition today (and still won't for quite some time).