The market for the chips that run personal computers and servers depends on innovations that take years to develop into new products. Su, a chip engineer herself with an MIT Ph.D., has spent the past five years directing a massive bet to create cutting-edge processors that could finally make AMD competitive with larger rivals Intel and Nvidia. Now Su’s work is paying off. Revenue jumped 23% last year to $6.5 billion, even as overall PC sales declined slightly. Su says the company has reached a “significant inflection point,” as its just-released, latest-­generation chips have leapfrogged Intel’s best, helping AMD’s stock climb 66% year to date. Su is not just the first woman to head 50-year-old AMD but also the only woman CEO among all the major semiconductor makers.

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