Emirates NBD Expands AMD Processor Deployment Across Data Centres and Employee Laptops
Emirates NBD has expanded its use of AMD processors across its data centres and employee laptops as part of its ongoing digital transformation programme. The bank began its transformation programme in 2018 to simplify its technology environment, improve infrastructure scalability and support its digital banking services. It adopted AMD EPYC server processors in 2022 and has since extended its deployment to employee laptops powered by AMD Ryzen PRO processors.
According to Emirates NBD, comparative testing showed an average server performance improvement of more than 42%, with gains reaching 51% in some cases. The bank also reported that transaction processing times decreased from 1–2 seconds to between 0.5 and 1 second. Improvements were also recorded in log-processing times.
“We’ve always invested heavily in technology, and this is important to position ourselves for continued growth and to best serve our clients,” said Nicholas Grimm, Head of Cloud Compute, Emirates NBD. “This enables us to provide highly available performance services.”
The bank’s data centres now run on AMD EPYC processors, supporting a private cloud environment that hosts more than 350 applications and over 2,000 APIs. The infrastructure handles more than 300 million API calls daily and supports the bank’s operations across 13 countries.
“We are now running all our data centers on AMD EPYC CPUs,” adds Marwan Abdulla, Head of Data Center and Operations, Emirates NBD. “These high frequency EPYC processors are energy efficient and contribute to the bank’s wider ESG targets. Few banks operate with the same level of efficiency that we do Today.”
Emirates NBD has also evaluated AMD-powered laptops for employee use. The bank reported that these devices delivered an average performance improvement of 40% in its evaluations. AMD processors are now being used across all new employee laptops, according to the bank.
“We want our staff to have the latest and greatest systems,” commented Ali Rey, Group Head of Technology Platforms, Emirates NBD. “When we tested the different laptops, we were very impressed with AMD processors. They were 40% faster on average and had the GPU included. When it came time to refresh our laptops, it was an easy decision to go with AMD CPUs.”
