Sony and AMD Join Forces to Bring AI to Gaming

Sony and AMD have announced a strategic partnership aimed at developing cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to enhance graphics and gameplay across consoles, PCs, and cloud platforms.

Mark Cerny, the lead architect of PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro, confirmed the collaboration and revealed details of the multi-year initiative, dubbed Project Amethyst.

According to Cerny, the project has two primary goals:

• Creating an architecture optimized for processing neural networks in graphical tasks.
• Developing high-quality neural networks for use in games and other products from both Sony and AMD.

Cerny stated that the goal is to incorporate machine learning across all gaming platforms to enhance graphics quality and make gameplay more realistic. He noted that this integration would also broaden the application of ray tracing and other cutting-edge graphics technologies.

Sony and AMD’s collaboration has already shown promising results. The PlayStation 5 and PS5 Pro processors feature RDNA 2 architecture, delivering high performance. Technologies like PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR) enhance image quality without straining system resources.

However, Project Amethyst aims for deeper AI integration, including using machine learning to boost texture detail, improve object physics, and adapt gameplay dynamically.

Bringing Project Amethyst to mass production will take time. Cerny noted that designing a new console typically takes about four years, suggesting that the project’s advancements will likely debut in the next-generation PlayStation 6. AMD also plans to incorporate the project's innovations into its future PC graphics solutions.