Under this partnership, Microsoft will integrate the AMD Helios Rackscale Solution
AMD has extended its collaboration with Microsoft to deliver next-generation AI infrastructure across Microsoft Azure, spanning GPUs, CPUs, networking technologies, and software.
Under this partnership, Microsoft will integrate the AMD Helios Rackscale Solution to power frontier AI model inference, Azure AI services, and customer AI workloads.
The Helios platform integrates AMD Instinct MI455X GPUs, 6th Gen AMD EPYC “Venice” processors, AMD Pensando networking, and the ROCm software stack into an open rack-scale architecture designed for large-scale AI training and inference. AMD said shipments of the Helios solution to customers, including Microsoft, will begin in the second half of 2026.
In addition to deploying Helios, Microsoft will introduce two new Azure virtual machine (VM) series powered by 6th Gen AMD EPYC processors. The Azure HDv2 series is designed for agentic AI and data pipeline workloads, while the Azure HXv2 series targets semiconductor design applications. The new offerings expand Azure’s AMD EPYC-based infrastructure portfolio across AI, engineering, and data-intensive workloads.
The partnership also extends to cloud networking, with Microsoft broadening its deployment of AMD Pensando Data Processing Units (DPUs). The companies are integrating Azure Boost with AMD technologies to improve networking performance, efficiency, and connection processing at cloud scale.
Commenting on the announcement, Dr. Lisa Su, Chair and CEO of AMD, said the expanded collaboration builds on years of joint infrastructure development and extends the partnership across AMD’s complete AI technology stack on Azure. She added that Microsoft’s latest deployments represent a significant milestone in delivering high-performance computing solutions and scaling next-generation AI infrastructure.
Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO of Microsoft, said customers require AI infrastructure optimized for a wide range of workloads, from training and inference to data preparation and reinforcement learning. He noted that the addition of AMD Helios to Azure expands customer choice while providing the performance and scale needed to develop and deploy next-generation AI applications.
This partnership will offer frontier AI model developers access to AMD-powered infrastructure while enabling enterprise customers to build and scale production AI workloads through Azure Foundry Managed Compute. It will continue working with Microsoft to deliver open, high-performance AI infrastructure that offers greater flexibility, efficiency, and scalability for cloud customers.
