According to recent information from Tom's Hardware, AMD has revealed its intention to merge its consumer-focused gaming RDNA and data center CDNA graphics architectures into a single, unified design known as "UDNA." The announcement was made by Jack Huynh, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Computing and Graphics Business Group at AMD, during IFA 2024 in Berlin. The objective of the new UDNA architecture is to streamline development for optimized applications to run on both consumer-grade GPUs like Radeon RX 7900XTX and high-end data center GPUs like Instinct MI300. This move aims to create a unified platform similar to NVIDIA's CUDA, enabling developers to run applications across various devices from laptops to data centers.
Jack Huynh explained, "Part of a significant change at AMD is the transition from having separate CDNA architecture for data center GPUs and RDNA for consumer products to a unified UDNA architecture. This consolidation will simplify the development process for developers, eliminating the need to choose between architectures and ensuring continuous improvement." Huynh also mentioned AMD's plans for future generations, stating, "We are looking ahead to UDNA 6 and UDNA 7 to maintain optimizations without the need to reset the matrix on memory hierarchy changes, ensuring forward and backward compatibility."
Initially, AMD's decision to separate CDNA and RDNA architectures was intended to streamline operations, but it proved to be challenging to manage two distinct optimization teams. The shift towards a unified GPU architecture is expected to benefit the company in the long run by facilitating the development of new products with both gaming and compute-focused teams collaborating. This strategic approach mirrors NVIDIA's CUDA architecture, which has maintained a single lane architecture with additional accelerators for AI and ray tracing, a direction that AMD also plans to pursue.
