What happens when a VP of AI Software at a major chip company goes all-in on AI coding agents for his own team's work?Anush Elangovan runs 10–12 Claude Code agents across three machines, burns 6.5 billion tokens a week, and rewrote a 25-year-old project (Slurm → Spur in Rust) in a single night.He does it all on dangerously-skip-permissions.About Anush Anush Elangovan is Corporate VP of AI Software at AMD. He founded Nod.ai, where his team built SHARK and was a primary contributor to Torch-MLIR and IREE. AMD acquired Nod.ai in 2023, and Anush now leads AI software strategy across AMD's full silicon portfolio. Before Nod.ai, he shipped the graphics stack on the first ARM Chromebook and led Chrome OS's migration to Gentoo.We cover:How Anush runs 10–12 parallel agents with a geo-distributed AMD hardware rigWhy the test harness is the new code review (and why agents are "sneaky and dumb")Rewriting a 25-year-old project in Rust overnight, without opening the editorWhy every new project is in Rust specifically because he refuses to learn itThe "HR partner fixing engineering bugs" moment and what it says about upskillingWhy normal SDLC is dead and speed is the only durable moatAMD's fully open-source software stack and how community contributions are accelerating ROCm"Software is just tokens" and what that means for AMD's bet against CUDA lock-inConnect with Anush LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/anushelangovan Twitter/X: @AnushElangovan AMD AI blog: amd.com AMD AI Developer Program: amd.com/developerConnect with Conor Newsletter: newsletter.chainofthought.show Twitter/X: @ConorBronsdon LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/conorbronsdon YouTube: @ConorBronsdonMore episodes: chainofthought.showChapters 0:00 Cold open 0:21 Welcome + guest intro 3:43 250K lines a week, 10–12 parallel agents 7:34 Agent architecture + geo-distributed test rig 9:57 When does AI-generated code become a liability? 14:12 80% tests first: the test harness philosophy 18:24 Dangerously-skip-permissions + testing as code review 19:52 "Normal SDLC is dead in the agentic world" 20:44 Advice for engineers and leaders who feel behind 24:51 Tokens, throughput, and what happens next 26:29 Block layoffs, uneven AI gains, the 25-year Slurm rewrite 32:55 Galileo sponsor break 34:24 When agents go off the rails: sneaky and dumb 37:52 Orchestrator agents vs. focused multi-threading 40:45 Open source, ROCm, AMD's software bet 44:19 "Software is just tokens" 45:24 AMD Developer Program + community contributions 47:09 Where to start with AMD 48:39 Heterogeneous compute 50:13 OutroThanks to Galileo. Download their free 165-page guide to mastering multi-agent systems at galileo.ai/mastering-multi-agent-systemsFull show notes: newsletter.chainofthought.showDisclaimer from our host: All views, opinions and statements expressed on this account are solely my own and are made in my personal capacity. They do not reflect, and should not be construed as reflecting, the views, positions, or policies of my employer. This account is not affiliated with, authorized by, or endorsed by my employer in any way.

Ask this episode

“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.

Transcript

Related