New Era of AI Infrastructure: Inside Microsoft's Azure Overhaul
Microsoft unveiled new infrastructure updates for Azure at Ignite 2024, focusing on AI accelerators, liquid cooling, and high-efficiency power delivery. The highlight is the co-validation of Nvidia's Blackwell GPUs for the new Azure ND GB200 v6 virtual machines, enabling large-scale AI supercomputing.
Mike Wheatley writes for SiliconANGLE
Microsoft Corp. wants to be the infrastructure foundation for the next generation of artificial intelligence, catering to everyone from agile startups to multinational corporations, and to do this it’s introducing some significant advancements and upgrades to the Azure Cloud platform. The new infrastructure updates announced at Microsoft Ignite 2024 today are all about offering customers more choices in terms of power, performance, and cost efficiency. They cover advancements in everything from AI accelerators, computer chips, and liquid cooling to data integrations and flexible cloud deployments.
Additional advancements include custom silicon options like the Azure Boost DPU and Azure Integrated HSM for enhanced performance and security.