Sony announces new 'Amethyst' collaboration with AMD to develop 'machine learning' technology in games

Lead architect of the PS5 and PS5 Pro, Mark Cerny, has announced a new collaboration between Sony and AMD codenamed 'Amethyst'
The first goal is to create "a more ideal architecture for machine learning", as well as develop a high quality set of CNNs for game graphics
Cerny said this collaboration is "multi-year" but we shouldn't "expect a massive hardware announcement immediately coming out of this"

PlayStation console architect Mark Cerny has announced a new collaboration between Sony and AMD codenamed 'Amethyst' to develop machine learning technology across various devices.

Mark Cerny, lead architect of the PS5 and PS5 Pro, presented a technical seminar yesterday, offering a deep dive into the mid-generation console and its new PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution) technology.

During the presentation, Cerny also revealed that Sony is furthering its current partnership with AMD - which already collaborates on the PS5 and PS5 Pro's GPUs - to develop machine learning in games in a new project called 'Amethyst'.

"With Amethyst, we’ve started on another long journey and are combining our expertise with two goals in mind," Mark Cerny said.

"The first goal is a more ideal architecture for machine learning. Something capable of generalized processing of neural networks but particularly good at the lightweight CNNs needed for game graphics and something focused around achieving that Holy Grail of fully-fused networks."

Cerny explained that the second goal is to develop "in parallel, a set of high quality CNNs for game graphics" to will help further graphical capability.

"Both SIE and AMD will independently have the ability to draw from this collection of network architectures and training strategies, and these components should be key in increasing the richness of game graphics as well as enabling more extensive use of ray tracing and path tracing," he said.

Cerny also spoke to Digital Foundry in a Q&A following the presentation to discuss more about the AMD collaboration. The developer said that it's a "deep collaboration" that's "multi-year", but that we shouldn't "expect a massive hardware announcement immediately coming out of this".