AMD takes on Nvidia with Helios AI as Microsoft joins growing client list

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is taking its biggest step yet in challenging Nvidia's dominance in artificial intelligence hardware, with the chipmaker preparing to begin shipments of its first rack-scale AI system, Helios, later this year. Microsoft has now 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 highly sought-after Grace Blackwell and next-generation Vera Rubin AI systems. The launch comes after more than a decade of AMD's resurgence and represents the company's strongest attempt to capture a larger share of the booming AI computing market. On Monday, Microsoft announced that 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, although neither company disclosed pricing details or the amount of computing capacity involved. 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 technology giant will also introduce two new Azure computing instances powered by AMD's latest Venice central processing units (CPUs). 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 wrote in a press release. The latest announcement further 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. Alongside AMD hardware, Microsoft also continues to develop and deploy its in-house Maia AI chips across its cloud infrastructure. Like other major technology companies, 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, although its broader AI initiatives—including Microsoft 365 Copilot and GitHub Copilot—have produced mixed commercial results. Microsoft's shares have also been the weakest performer among the so-called "Magnificent Seven" technology stocks so far this year. 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 also 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 also 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.” For about a decade, Livemint—News Desk has been a credible source for authentic and timely news, and well-researched analysis on national news, business, personal finance, corporates, politics and geopolitics. We bring the latest updates on all the listed companies on BSE and NSE, startups, mutual funds, Union ministries, geopolitics, and untapped human interest stories from around the world, helping our readers to stay informed on the latest developments around the globe. Our Coverage Areas 1. Companies: Comprehensive news and analysis on listed and unlisted companies, corporate announcements, corporate chatter, C-suite, business trends, hiring alerts, layoffs, work-life balance, world's top billionaires and richest and more. 2. Personal finance: Insights into mutual funds, small savings schemes like - PPF, SSY, post office savings scheme, stock to watch, personal loans, credit cards, top bank FDs, real estate, income tax and more. 3. Politics: Comprehensive coverage of general elections, state elections and bypolls, Lok Sabha, Vidhan Sabha, Parliament, PMO, PIB, finance ministry, home ministry, among other union ministries and government departments. 4. National News: From metro cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and e to untapped stories from rural India, we cover human interest, health, education, crime and courts, and law and order, among other areas of public interest. 5. Economy: In-depth analysis of India's macro and micro-economic indicators like- GDP, inflation, forex, fiscal deficit, current account deficit, interest rate cycle, economic recovery, RBI circulars, indirect taxes, GST, Insolvency and Bankruptcy imports, exports and everything that impacts Indian economy. 6. Geopolitics: Well-rounded and deeply researched coverage on US News, Oval Office European Union, Ukraine Russia War, middle-east crisis, royal families and global leaders like - Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping and premiers of other leading economies in the world. Meet the Team 1. Gulam Jeelani, Political Affairs Editor 2. Sugam Singhal, Senior Assistant Editor 3. Chanchal, Assistant Editor 4. Sanchari Ghosh, Chief Content Producer 5. Pratik Prashant Mukane, Chief Content Producer 6. Sayantani Biswas, Chief Content Producer 7. Ravi Hari, Deputy Chief Content Producer 8. Garvit Bhirani, Deputy Chief Content Producer 9. Akriti Anand, Senior Content Producer 10. Jocelyn Felix Fernandes, Senior Content Producer 11. Swastika Das Sharma, Content Producer 12. Mausam Jha, Content Producer 13. Riya R Alex, Trainee Content Producer Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates. Oops! Looks like you have exceeded the limit to bookmark the image. Remove some to bookmark this image.