Sony is designing 'big chunks' of AMD's next-gen Radeon architecture for the PlayStation 6

Sony has a long-standing partnership with AMD, which supplies and develops custom CPU and GPU hardware for PlayStation consoles. Late last year, Sony announced 'Project Amethyst,' a closer partnership that would jointly develop next-gen hardware and AI architecture for the PlayStation 6.

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This partnership builds on Sony's custom work, which includes new AI hardware and tools, such as PSSR upscaling, that it developed for the PlayStation 5 Pro. Although the new initiative was only announced last year, we already know that AMD's new AI-powered FSR 4 for its RDNA 4 generation of Radeon RX 9000 Series graphics was developed as part of 'Project Amethyst.'

That's only the beginning, as we've now learned that Sony is driving significant components of AMD's next-generation Radeon architecture development. In a new interview with PlayStation system architect Mark Cerny over at Tom's Guide, he confirms that "big chunks" of AMD's next-gen gaming architecture are "coming out of engineering I am doing on the project."

"Big chunks of RDNA 5, or whatever AMD ends up calling it, are coming out of engineering I am doing on the project," Mark Cerny said. "And again, this is coming out of trying to move things forward. There are no restrictions on the way any of it can be used."

The benefit for PC gamers, of course, is that these technologies will be integrated into the next generation of Radeon GPUs for desktop, mobile, and integrated graphics. As highlighted by Mark Cerny, there are no restrictions on how any of it will be used, including on next-generation Xbox hardware.

The naming confusion in Mark Cerny's quote stems from AMD's decision to ditch the RDNA branding for its new unified UDNA architecture, which will encompass both gaming and workstation/AI GPU products.

Interestingly, even though the PlayStation 6 hasn't been formally announced, the fact that 'Project Amethyst' is already benefiting Radeon gamers on PC means that we're already starting to hear about new tech that will be part of the PS6. AMD's recently announced FSR Redstone project for FSR 4 and RDNA 4 GPUs indicates that AI-powered Frame Generation, Ray Regeneration, and Neural Radiance Caching are all coming to the PS6 to enhance real-time ray-tracing and path-tracing performance.

As seen with several GeForce RTX generations of hardware from NVIDIA, AI is going to define the next decade of gaming, from upscaling with FSR and DLSS through to AI-enhanced rendering, texture compression, neural shaders, and more.