Microsoft Brings AMD Helios AI Racks to Azure

Microsoft will deploy AMD's upcoming Helios rack design in Azure, marking an expanded partnership between the two companies. Each Helios system houses 72 Instinct MI455 GPUs with 432GB of HBM4 memory, supported by Pensando data processing units and Epyc Venice-series CPUs. AMD plans to begin shipping racks later this year. Microsoft announced three new Azure instance families alongside the deal. The ND MI455X v7 series targets AI inference workloads, the HDv2 series handles CPU-based AI tasks, and the HXv2 series supports chip design and scientific simulations. Microsoft and AMD will also collaborate to optimize Azure Boost virtualization offloading for AMD hardware.