The American semiconductor company Advanced Micro Devices, better known as Amd, is about to bring to market its first integrated architecture for artificial intelligence, called Helios. One of the first clients will be Microsoft, which will use it in its data centers to support the cloud computing services offered through Azure and to power the most advanced language models.
MICROSOFT AND AMD: A LONG-STANDING RELATIONSHIP
For Microsoft, the purchase of Helios represents the continuation of a long-standing relationship with Amd: the microchips from Lisa Su’s company are indeed present inside Surface devices, Xbox consoles, and data centers; in 2023, Microsoft was also the first company to use Amd’s MI300X graphics processing unit, a product directly competing with Nvidia’s processors, the largest microchip company in the world.
AMD CHALLENGES NVIDIA WITH HELIOS
The Helios system also competes with Nvidia, specifically with the Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin platforms, widely used in the artificial intelligence sector. The rack-scale Helios architecture – as reported by Cnbc – consists of graphics processing units, central processing units, software, and systems of cables and network cards.
CEO Lisa Su believes Helios offers “significant advantages” over Nvidia’s rack-scale systems “both in terms of inference and bandwidth and memory capacity.” The inference phase, simply put, is when an artificial intelligence model responds to user requests; bandwidth refers to the amount of data that can be transferred in one second.
Amd has not revealed the price of Helios but it is estimated to be around 5-5.5 million dollars, higher than Nvidia’s Vera Rubin systems (3.5-4 million). Helios is also larger and heavier.
THE GPU MARKET FOR DATA CENTERS
Currently, Nvidia controls over 95 percent of the graphics processing unit market for data centers; Amd’s share is just 4.5 percent, but according to estimates from Futurum Group cited by Cnbc, it could rise to 20-25 percent precisely thanks to Helios. Amd expects the system to allow it to earn multi-billion dollar sums starting from 2027: data centers already represent the majority of the company’s revenue, and in the first quarter of 2026, revenues from this segment reported a 57 percent year-on-year increase.
WHO CHOOSES AMD
Microsoft is not the only Big Tech company engaged in the race for artificial intelligence to have relied on Amd’s technologies. According to Amd, in fact, eight of the leading companies active in artificial intelligence – including OpenAi, Cohere, and Elon Musk’s SpaceXAi – use its Instinct graphics processing units.
Last February, Meta also announced that it will use Amd processors for a maximum capacity of 6 gigawatts, starting from 1 GW based on Helios systems. OpenAi and Oracle have also said they will purchase Helios.
