AMD recently announced it is working with Microsoft to advance open source cloud hardware. During the 2017 Open Compute Project U.S. Summit, the company said it teamed up with Microsoft to add Naples’ processor’s cloud delivery features to Microsoft’s Project Olympus.

Project Olympus is Microsoft’s next-gen hyperscale cloud hardware design, and also a new model for open-source hardware development within the OCP community.

AMD says the joint effort means updated cloud hardware design can ‘adapt to meet the application demands of global datacentre consumers’.

“Next quarter AMD will bring hardware innovation back into the datacenter and server markets with our high-performance “Naples” x86 CPU, that was designed with the needs of cloud providers, enterprise OEMs and customers in mind,” said Scott Aylor, corporate vice president of enterprise systems, AMD. “Today we are proud to continue our support for the Open Compute Project by announcing our collaboration on Microsoft’s Project Olympus.”

Naples will bring the ‘Zen’’ x86 processing engine in configurations going up to 32 cores. AMD says the access to large amounts of memory and industry-leading on-chip support for high-speed I/O channels in a single chip SoC will separate Naples from everything else available in the market today.

The first processors are expected in the market in the second quarter of this year.

Kushagra Vaid, general manager and distinguished engineer, Azure Cloud Hardware Infrastructure, Microsoft Corp. said, “Collaboration across the open source community is central to driving rapid innovation and creating a vibrant ecosystem for Microsoft’s Project Olympus. Partnership in design, such as our collaboration with AMD, shows how engaging early and often with hardware innovators can produce open source designs that are faster to market and customizable to enable flexibility and choice for end users.”

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