LAS VEGAS — John Canning, director of developer relations for creators at AMD, is on a mission to “make PCs cool again.”
That means focusing on who’s using them and what they’re using them for, he said April 5 during the presentation “Supercharged Hardware: A Flux Capacitor for Creators” at the Content Delivery & Security Association’s (CDSA) Summit at the NAB Show. You can create the greatest tools in the world, but it only means something “when people go create stuff,” Canning said.
So AMD and HP teamed up on the ZBook Ultra line-up of mobile workstations, featuring new scalable unified memory that can carve out up to 96GB of graphics memory, double what’s available on high-end discrete desktop cards. At up to 128GB, it’s the world’s highest memory capacity in a mini workstation and is capable of high-speed AI processing.
“One of the challenges we see with customers is they need to do more with less,” said Barbara Marshall, industry strategy and marketing of media and entertainment for HP. “In the creator economy you see one person doing a lot of things, using a lot of apps.”
Advances like the ZBook Ultra and other hardware can significantly enhance creative processes. Innovations in computing power, graphics capabilities, and specialized integrated tools empower creators — such as artists, musicians, and filmmakers — to push boundaries and realize their visions more quickly and more effectively, Canning and Marshall said.
To open the Summit, Richard Atkinson, president and chairman emeritus of CDSA, said those working in the industry should buckle up for a bumpy ride. With 73 percent of all media consumption now happening on YouTube, roughly half of all Gen Z people striving to be creators of some sort, and younger people shunning traditional ways of finding content in favor of listening to influencers, absolutely everything we’re used to in media and entertainment is changing, he said.
AI is changing everything, with one estimate saying as many as 800 million jobs could be lost to AI by 2030. And recent economic turmoil has seen job cuts jump roughly 200 percent, with hiring projections down 16 percent.
Atkinson shared ideas on how people can get through the storm and see that their business is “thriving and surviving in a tsunami of change. It’s a very stressful time.”
Support core areas of business value, look at ways to reduce costs, emphasize consumer satisfaction, and learn to leverage AI everywhere, he said.
The CDSA Summit at NAB was presented by AMD with sponsorship by IP House, Vimeo, and EIDR.
