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AMD extended its strategic partnership with Microsoft to cover GPUs, CPUs, networking and software for Azure infrastructure. Under the deal, Microsoft will deploy AMD’s Helios Rackscale Solution for AI inference supporting cutting-edge models, Azure AI services and enterprise apps, making it the first major cloud operator to publicly adopt Helios at large scale—confirming AMD’s rack-scale platform serves as a viable production substitute for NVIDIA’s equivalent systems, not merely a reference blueprint.
AMD Helios Azure
Helios is AMD’s rack-scale AI platform combining Instinct MI455X GPUs, 6th Gen AMD EPYC Venice CPUs, Pensando networking and the ROCm software stack. Built on an open architecture for large-scale AI training and inference, it delivers a full alternative infrastructure stack for cloud vendors and firms building large model ecosystems.
AMD’s official blog positions Helios as an end-to-end integrated system instead of discrete hardware sales: unified AMD compute, networking, software, power and cooling hardware optimized for training, inference, fine-tuning and agentic AI rather than a single workload type. The two firms split responsibilities clearly: AMD provides core silicon hardware, while Microsoft layers Azure’s cloud operations, developer tools, security and AI platform services on top. Both sides stress rack-scale hardware delivers greater value when packaged into a complete, scalable cloud platform for enterprise users. The announcement precedes AMD’s Advancing AI 2026 event, where the pair will jointly host sessions covering sovereign AI, AI cost efficiency and production-grade large-scale infrastructure.
AMD Helios Azure - AMD Instinct Mi455X front
Azure will leverage Helios primarily for inference tasks across its native services and business applications. Developers building frontier models can train and run workloads on AMD-backed Azure infrastructure, and corporate clients manage production AI via Azure Foundry Managed Compute.
Their CPU cooperation also expands with two new Azure VM series powered by 6th Gen AMD EPYC Venice chips: Azure HDv2 for agentic AI and data pipelines, and Azure HXv2 for semiconductor design. These instances grow Azure’s existing AMD EPYC deployment for AI, data-heavy and engineering workloads.
Microsoft Azure AMD Hero image
Networking forms another key pillar of the expanded alliance. Already widely running AMD Pensando DPUs, Azure will integrate these DPUs into AMD’s AI backend networks and select cloud services, pairing Azure Boost with AMD hardware to boost large-scale cloud network throughput, efficiency and connection handling—critical for AI clusters, where inter-GPU east-west traffic outpaces all other data center traffic.
AMD and Microsoft frame the expanded partnership as a way to deliver elastic AI infrastructure covering model creation, inference, data processing, search and reinforcement learning. For AMD, the deal expands deployment of its GPU, CPU, DPU and software lineup within a top-tier hyperscale cloud. AMD plans to ship Helios systems to clients including Microsoft starting in H2 2026.
Beijing Qianxing Jietong Technology Co., Ltd.
Sandy Yang/Global Strategy Director
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Email: yangyd@qianxingdata.com
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Sandy Yang/Global Strategy Director
WhatsApp / WeChat: +86 13426366826
Email: yangyd@qianxingdata.com
Website: www.qianxingdata.com/www.storagesserver.com
Business Focus:
ICT Product Distribution/System Integration & Services/Infrastructure Solutions
With 20+ years of IT distribution experience, we partner with leading global brands to deliver reliable products and professional services.
“Using Technology to Build an Intelligent World”Your Trusted ICT Product Service Provider!