Sony and AMD develop AI hardware architecture for PlayStation 6

Sony’s PlayStation 6 will feature a revolutionary graphics architecture that combines traditional processing with dedicated AI hardware to deliver unprecedented gaming visuals. The announcement comes from PlayStation architect Mark Cerny and AMD, who revealed their collaborative “Amethyst” project that promises to overcome current limitations in AI-enhanced gaming through specialized neural processing units and advanced ray tracing technology.

What you should know: Sony and AMD are developing three key technologies that will fundamentally change how the PlayStation 6 processes graphics and game data.

• Neural Arrays will connect compute units within GPU shader engines to function “like a single, focused AI engine,” enabling more efficient processing of AI upscaling and denoising technologies.
• Radiance Cores represent dedicated hardware blocks designed for “unified light transport” that will handle ray traversal, freeing up CPU and GPU resources for other tasks.
• Universal Compression will automatically evaluate and compress all data heading to the console’s memory, increasing available bandwidth for higher detail and frame rates.

Why this matters: Current AI graphics technologies like FSR and PSSR are “incredibly demanding on the GPU” and “computationally expensive,” requiring massive amounts of memory access that creates bottlenecks.

• “Trying to brute-force that with raw power alone just doesn’t scale,” explained AMD’s Jack Huynh, highlighting why architectural innovation is necessary rather than simply adding more processing power.
• The new approach promises “real-time physics, cinematic lighting, [and] efficient asset streaming” for next-generation games without overwhelming system resources.

The big picture: This represents a fundamental shift from traditional console design toward specialized AI-accelerated hardware architectures.

• Neural Arrays will allow processing “a large chunk of the screen in one go,” with efficiencies that Cerny calls “a game changer” for next-generation upscaling and denoising technologies.
• The architecture enables “bigger ML [machine learning] models, less overhead, more efficiency, and way more scalability as workloads grow,” according to Huynh.

What they’re saying: Sony and AMD executives emphasize that while the technology shows promise, it remains in early development stages.

• “Overall, it’s still very early days for these technologies; they only exist in simulation right now, but the results are quite promising,” Cerny said. “And I’m really excited about bringing them to a future console in a few years’ time.”
• Huynh described Amethyst as poised to deliver “gaming breakthroughs” through its combination of traditional rasterization with neural acceleration.

Timeline and context: The PlayStation 6 remains years away, but related technologies are already appearing in current-generation hardware.

• FSR 4 will arrive on the PlayStation 5 Pro next year, replacing the existing PSSR AI upscaling technology.
• AMD has been offering AI gaming boost technologies through FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) on PC Radeon GPUs, providing a foundation for the more advanced Amethyst implementations.