Microsoft Azure expands partnership with AMD for AI infrastructure
Microsoft Azure and AMD are deepening their strategic partnership to strengthen Azure's AI infrastructure, including new GPU and CPU offerings.
What happened?
Microsoft Azure announced an expanded strategic partnership with AMD on 21 July 2026. The collaboration involves integrating AMD's rack-scale Helios platform into Azure's infrastructure for frontier model inference. Furthermore, two new VM series based on EPYC "Venice" processors and Pensando DPUs are being introduced for Azure networking.
Key facts
| Tillkännagivandedatum | 21 juli 2026 |
|---|---|
| Plattform | AMD Helios |
| GPU:er | Instinct MI455X |
| CPU:er | EPYC "Venice" |
| VM-serier | HDv2 (6:e generationens EPYC) |
| Leveransstart | Andra halvåret 2026 |
”AMD and Microsoft announced an expanded strategic partnership that brings the AMD Helios rackscale platform to Azure for frontier model inference, adds two EPYC “Venice”-powered VM series, and broadens Pensando DPU deployment across Azure networking.”
”Microsoft will ramp the AMD Helios rack-scale solution, combining Instinct MI455X GPUs, EPYC “Venice” CPUs, Pensando networking, and ROCm, to power frontier model inference for Microsoft, its AI customers, and Azure AI services, with shipments beginning in the second half of 2026”
”Azure HDv2 VMs, co-designed with AMD and featuring nearly 500 physical 6th Gen EPYC cores, 4 terabytes of RAM, 32 terabytes of local NVMe storage, and 400 Gb Azure Boost networking, target data preparation, search, reinforcement learning, and agent coordination”
Why it matters
The expanded partnership is crucial for meeting the rapidly growing demand for AI capacity, particularly for workloads such as reinforcement learning and agent coordination. By integrating AMD's latest hardware, including Instinct MI455X GPUs and 6th generation EPYC CPUs, Azure can offer enhanced performance and efficiency for advanced AI applications. This is intended to support both Microsoft's own AI services and their AI customers.
Who is affected?
This primarily affects AI developers and companies using Microsoft Azure to train and deploy AI models, especially those working with large-scale inference and complex AI workloads such as reinforcement learning. Users of Azure AI services will also benefit from the improved underlying infrastructure.
What else you should know
Deliveries of AMD Helios to Azure are expected to start in the second half of 2026. The new HDv2 VM instances, featuring nearly 500 physical CPU cores, 4 TB of RAM, and 32 TB of local NVMe storage, are specifically designed for data preparation and reinforcement learning.
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