AMD launches Helios, lands Microsoft Azure deal

AMD said Microsoft will deploy its Helios rack systems, GPUs, CPUs, networking and software on Microsoft Azure in an expanded partnership.

Under the terms of the expanded partnership between AMD and Microsoft, the cloud and software giant will do the following:

• Scale AMD Helios on Azure to power AI frontier model inference workloads.
• Add two new agentic AI VM services powered by 6th Gen AMD EPYC processors.
• Deploy AMD Pensando DPUs on Azure for AI networking infrastructure.
• Integrate AMD chips with Azure Boost to scale cloud networking.

AMD said it will ship Helios to customers and Microsoft in the second half.

For AMD, winning Helios deals is critical. AMD Helios includes AMD Instinct MI455X GPUs, AMD EPYC server CPUs, networking and ROCm software in an integrated system for AI training and inference. Should AMD Helios scale well, the chipmaker will have a beachhead to compete with Nvidia's integrated AI stack.

Dr. Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, called the Microsoft expanded partnership an important milestone. AMD's expansion in Microsoft Azure gives enterprises the ability to use the company's infrastructure via Azure Foundry Managed Compute.

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