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What happens when the world's thirst for artificial intelligence collides with physical limitations? The answer lies at the intersection of silicon innovation and packaging technology.

From the conference hall of ECTC 2025 in Dallas, we're joined by Sam Naffziger of AMD who reveals how AI has transformed from a peripheral topic to the dominant force in computing within just five years. The economic motivation is clear: creating machines that generate intelligence offers "uncalculable value" to humanity. Yet as Nafziger explains, today's large language models face significant limitations—they excel at pattern recognition but struggle with true reasoning, suffer from hallucinations, and require human verification for mission-critical applications.

Perhaps most surprising is Nafziger's revelation about "the data wall"—general-purpose AI models have essentially exhausted the high-quality training data available on the internet. This constraint is pushing AI development toward more sophisticated approaches involving reinforcement learning and models that check other models, gradually shifting from simple pattern recognition toward deliberative thinking that more closely resembles human reasoning.

The conversation tackles the looming concern of AI's energy consumption, projected to reach 10% of global power by 2030. Rather than viewing this as an insurmountable problem, Nafziger offers a compelling perspective: AI's ability to optimize countless processes—from transportation routing to crop yields and manufacturing efficiency—could ultimately lead to net energy savings despite its own substantial power requirements.

For the advanced packaging community, the message is clear: your work sits at the foundation of AI's future. As computational demands increase exponentially, innovations in thermal management, power delivery, and component integration will directly determine how quickly and effectively AI can evolve. 

Connect with Sam Naffziger on LinkedIn or visit AMD.com to learn more about their competitive AI solutions and join the conversation about technology that's reshaping our world.

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