Microsoft expands strategic partnership with AMD across GPUs, CPUs and networking on Azure

Microsoft and AMD have announced an expanded long-term strategic partnership spanning GPUs, CPUs, networking and software on Azure, with Microsoft set to deploy AMD's Helios Rackscale Solution to power frontier model AI inference workloads.

At the centre of the deal is AMD Helios, a rackscale platform that combines AMD Instinct MI455X GPUs, AMD EPYC 'Venice' CPUs, Pensando networking and ROCm software.

Microsoft said it will use Helios for inference workloads spanning frontier models, Azure AI services and customer applications. AMD will begin shipping Helios to customers, including Microsoft.

The partnership also adds two new AMD EPYC CPU-powered virtual machine series to Azure.

The Azure HDv2, aimed at agentic AI and data pipelines, and the Azure HXv2, targeting semiconductor design workloads, will both be powered by sixth-generation AMD EPYC 'Venice' processors. The new VM series broaden Azure's existing AMD EPYC portfolio across AI, data and engineering use cases.

Azure's networking layer is also in scope. The companies said they are integrating Azure Boost with AMD Pensando DPUs - building on Microsoft's existing Pensando deployment - to improve networking performance, efficiency and connection processing at cloud scale.

For partners and enterprise customers building on Azure, the expanded deal widens access to AMD-powered infrastructure. According to AMD, frontier model builders will be able to use AMD infrastructure to train and serve large-scale AI models, while enterprise customers can deploy production AI workloads through Azure Foundry Managed Compute.

"AMD and Microsoft have spent years building high-performance infrastructure together, and today we're extending that partnership across the full stack of AMD AI solutions on Azure," said Dr Lisa Su, chair and chief executive at AMD.

"Microsoft's new AMD deployments mark an important milestone as we deliver leadership compute solutions to Azure customers and scale the next generation of AI infrastructure together."

"“Customers are looking for AI infrastructure that is optimized for a wide range of workloads, from training and inference to data preparation, search, and reinforcement learning," said Satya Nadella, chairman and chief executive at Microsoft.

"Through our collaboration with AMD, we are expanding the Azure infrastructure portfolio with AMD Helios to give customers the performance, scale and choice they need to build and run the next generation of AI applications," he said.