It's a security processor built into the main CPU. The AMD and Intel concepts are going to be similar enough that this talk will do:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR0nh-TdpVg
- https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/hardware/intels-secret-cpu-on-chip-management-engine-me-runs-on-minix-os/
- https://forum.osdev.org/viewtopic.php?t=32549
MINIX is likely the most used OS on earth because it's running inside the x86 processor. tl;dr the processor presented to your operating system isn't the real core of the computer; it's just a virtual machine.
EDIT: I knew there was more, but it's been so long I'd forgotten: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmTwlEh8L7g