Microsoft Azure Is The First Cloud Service To Feature AMD Instinct MI300X, 4th Gen EPYC VMs In Q1 2024

Microsoft and AMD have announced that Azure will be the first cloud provider to make use of the next-gen Instinct MI300X accelerators.

Prior to AMD's "Advancing AI" keynote, the company is announcing its brand new VMs within the Microsoft Azure cloud ecosystem. Powered by the next-generation Instinct MI300X and the latest EPYC CPUs, these new instances will deliver faster performance, new services & additional compute capabilities across the cloud and Generative AI landscape.

Microsoft has announced that the Azure ND MI300x v5 Virtual Machine will be the first cloud platform to feature the Instinct MI300X accelerator. The Mi300X, powered by the CDNA 3 GPU architecture, offers a great leap in performance with up to 192 GB of memory capacities and a massive amount of compute for HPC and AI workloads. You can learn more about this high-end accelerator here.

Today at Microsoft Ignite, AMD and Microsoft featured how AMD products, including the upcoming AMD Instinct MI300X accelerator, AMD EPYC CPUs and AMD Ryzen CPUs with AI engines, are enabling new services and compute capabilities across cloud and generative AI, Confidential Computing, Cloud Computing and smarter, more intelligent PCs

Powering New AI Capabilities in Azure AMD Instinct MI300X

Microsoft’s new Azure ND MI300x v5 Virtual Machine (VM) series optimized for AI workloads features the AMD Instinct MI300X, making Azure the first cloud to use the new accelerator. The new VMs are part of Microsoft’s diverse infrastructure supporting AI innovation for enterprises everywhere giving customers more choice in efficiency and scalability.

Advancing Cloud Computing with AMD EPYC Processors

4th Gen AMD EPYC processors are also now being used to run a new generation of general-purpose, memory-intensive, and compute-optimized VMs. These new VMs from Microsoft continue to showcase the growth and demand of AMD EPYC processors in the cloud and will provide better price options, up to 20% better performance for general-purpose and memory-intensive VMs, and up to 2x the CPU performance for compute-optimized VMs versus the previous generation of AMD EPYC-powered VMs. The new VM series will be made available in public preview in the first quarter of 2024.

via AMD

In addition to the MI300X VMs, AMD will also be providing its 4th Gen EPYC CPUs to power general-purpose, memory-intensive, and compute-optimized VMs. Microsoft states that these new VMs not only provide competitive pricing but also offer 20% better performance in standard and twice the performance uplift in compute-oriented VMs. The first public preview of the AMD 4th Gen EPYC-CPU powered servers is expected in Q1 2024.