AMD launches Helios AI platform at scale for Microsoft Azure, offering compelling alternative to Nvidia GPU clusters for hyperscaler workloads.
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is taking its biggest step yet in challenging Nvidia's dominance in artificial intelligence hardware, preparing to begin shipments of its first rack-scale AI system, Helios, later this year. Microsoft has joined a growing roster of customers adopting the platform, signalling increased competition in the AI infrastructure market.
Helios marks AMD's first direct competitor to Nvidia's Grace Blackwell and next-generation Vera Rubin AI systems. The launch represents the company's strongest attempt to capture a larger share of the booming AI computing market after more than a decade of resurgence.
On Monday, Microsoft announced it will deploy Helios systems in its data centres, joining customers including Meta, OpenAI, Oracle, and others racing to secure high-performance AI computing capacity. AMD confirmed that deliveries to customers, including Microsoft, will begin later this year, though neither company disclosed pricing details or computing capacity volumes.
Microsoft plans to use Helios to power inference for advanced AI models, support Azure AI services, and expand computing resources available to enterprise AI customers. The company will also introduce two new Azure computing instances powered by AMD's latest Venice central processing units. One will focus on agentic AI applications and data-processing pipelines, while the other is designed for semiconductor design workloads.
"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," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a press release.
The announcement strengthens the long-standing relationship between AMD and Microsoft. AMD processors have powered Microsoft's Surface computers and Xbox gaming consoles for years, while Microsoft became one of the earliest adopters of AMD's MI300X AI graphics processors in 2023 as an alternative to Nvidia's offerings. Microsoft also continues to develop and deploy its in-house Maia AI chips across its cloud infrastructure.
Microsoft is aggressively expanding its AI computing capabilities as it accelerates internal model development and dedicates more infrastructure to research and innovation. The company unveiled seven proprietary AI models in June, though its broader AI initiatives—including Microsoft 365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot—have produced mixed commercial results.
AMD's momentum in AI hardware continues to build. The company says eight of the world's top 10 AI companies now run workloads using its Instinct GPUs, with customers including OpenAI, Cohere, and SpaceXAI, the artificial intelligence division within SpaceX.
Earlier this year, Meta announced plans to deploy as much as 6 gigawatts of AMD GPU capacity over time, beginning with 1 gigawatt of Helios-powered infrastructure scheduled for deployment later this year. OpenAI and Oracle have committed to rolling out Helios systems in 2026, while India's largest IT services company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), has confirmed plans to integrate the platform into its AI infrastructure.
Although AMD has not revealed Helios pricing, research firm The Futurum Group estimates each system could cost between $5 million and $5.5 million. By comparison, the firm estimates Nvidia's second-generation Vera Rubin rack-scale AI system carries a price tag of roughly $3.5 million to $4 million.
Helios is physically larger than Nvidia's competing platform. Weighing up to 7,000 pounds, AMD's AI rack is both wider and heavier than the Vera Rubin system, reflecting the massive scale of next-generation AI infrastructure designed to power increasingly sophisticated models and enterprise workloads.
In May, AMD CEO Lisa Su told CNBC that Helios has "significant benefits" over Nvidia's rack-scale systems, "when you're talking about inference and when you're talking about memory bandwidth and memory capabilities."