Arm Collaborates with Microsoft on Custom Silicon to Unlock Sustainable, AI-Driven Infrastructure

By Mohamed Awad, SVP and GM of the Infrastructure Business, Arm

November 16, 2023 -- Arm is pursuing a critical mission to enable a computing infrastructure that can support billions of connections, hundreds of zetabytes of data and make an AI-accelerated future possible. Key to this effort is enabling a frictionless path to the customized silicon that will power this new generation of data center and networking infrastructure. Arm Neoverse CSS and the recently announced Arm Total Design ecosystem represent our relentless focus on simplifying the incredibly complex task of delivering more custom, specialized solutions.

The Neoverse CSS platform delivers a level of completeness that underscores the unique value Arm brings – performance, efficiency and flexibility. These are cornerstones of our technology, and delivering on these allow our partners to focus on more impactful innovation and differentiation that can be game-changing for cost and time to market. Arm succeeds when our partners are empowered to take their technology roadmap into their own hands, building solutions that enable the future of computing and AI. Today we are incredibly proud to mark a key milestone as Microsoft announces their first custom silicon built for the cloud, the Microsoft Azure Cobalt CPU, based on Arm Neoverse CSS.

Microsoft has played a key part in the adoption of Arm Neoverse, demonstrating the price-performance and power efficiency gains of the Arm-based Ampere Altra platform as an early adopter into their Microsoft Azure VM offerings. Microsoft is now announcing Azure Cobalt 100, the first generation in the Azure Cobalt CPU series, designed to tackle the biggest and most complex challenges the infrastructure will face from AI to sustainability. Azure Cobalt 100 fully uses the benefits delivered through the Neoverse CSS platform and a robust software ecosystem developing on Arm, allowing Microsoft more time to focus on adding unique innovation and optimization while saving significant development effort.

Through Neoverse CSS, Arm is making it easier than ever for the industry to innovate. For one of the largest hyperscalers in the world, this enabled a strategic decision to rethink what computing looks like, and to build and deploy their own custom-built silicon, powered by Arm Neoverse and the comprehensive technology platform we deliver.

Together with leaders like Microsoft, we’re unlocking a new path to more efficiently building data centers with the performance required to deliver the definitive platforms and services of the coming decade. That’s the true significance of Azure Cobalt, and we are very proud of the role we’ve played in supporting Microsoft’s vision. The future of computing infrastructure – purpose-built for the AI era – will be on Arm.

About Arm

Arm is building the future of computing. Our energy-efficient processor designs and software platforms have enabled advanced computing in more than 270 billion chips and our technologies securely power products from the sensor to the smartphone and the supercomputer. Together with 1,000+ technology partners, we are enabling artificial intelligence to work everywhere, and in cybersecurity, we are delivering the foundation for trust in the digital world – from chip to cloud. The future is being built on Arm.