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AMD Powers Microsoft's AI Cloud Future
20 Jul
Summary
- AMD's Helios solution will power Azure's AI inference and enterprise workloads.
- New Azure VMs will leverage AMD's 'Venice' architecture for AI and design.
- Microsoft integrates AMD silicon into Azure networking for peak performance.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has significantly expanded its strategic alliance with Microsoft, a move that will see AMD's advanced silicon power key components of Microsoft's Azure cloud services. This collaboration focuses on accelerating AI inference and enterprise workloads.
Central to this partnership is Microsoft's planned wide-scale deployment of the AMD Helios Rackscale Solution. Scheduled for shipment in the latter half of 2026, Helios integrates AMD Instinct MI455X GPUs, 6th Gen EPYC "Venice" CPUs, Pensando networking, and ROCm software to boost frontier model AI inference.
Further cementing this relationship, Azure will introduce two new virtual machine lines built on AMD's "Venice" architecture. The HDv2 series will cater to agentic AI and data processing, while the HXv2 series is designed for intensive semiconductor design tasks.
The partnership also extends to Azure's networking infrastructure. Microsoft will implement AMD Pensando DPUs across its AI backend. Additionally, AMD silicon will be integrated with Azure Boost, aiming to maximize cloud networking performance and solidify AMD's position as a foundational provider in the competitive hyperscale cloud market.
