Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD, XETRA:AMD) have announced an expanded strategic partnership focused on deploying AMD’s next-generation AI infrastructure across Microsoft Azure, including the rollout of AMD’s Helios rack-scale systems to support large-scale AI inference workloads.
Under the agreement, Microsoft will deploy AMD Helios systems on Azure to power frontier model inference for Microsoft’s AI services, customers and Azure AI offerings. AMD said Helios combines its Instinct MI455X GPUs, 6th Gen AMD EPYC “Venice” processors, Pensando networking technology and ROCm software into an integrated platform designed for large-scale AI training and inference.
AMD expects to begin shipping Helios systems to customers, including Microsoft, in the second half of 2026.
The companies are also expanding AMD’s CPU and networking presence on Azure. Microsoft will introduce two new virtual machine series powered by AMD EPYC “Venice” processors, including Azure HDv2 for agentic AI and data pipeline workloads and Azure HXv2 for semiconductor design applications.
In addition, Azure will broaden its deployment of AMD Pensando DPUs within its networking infrastructure and select Azure services. AMD and Microsoft are integrating Azure Boost with AMD technologies to improve cloud networking performance and efficiency across Azure’s infrastructure.
“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,” AMD Chair and CEO Lisa Su said.
“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.”
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the collaboration will expand Azure’s infrastructure options for customers building AI applications.
“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,” Nadella said.
“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.”
Shares of AMD added almost 3% on the news, while Microsoft shares added 0.6%.