AMD launches Helios rack system, MI450 GPUs; announces $5B strategic investment in Anthropic

Published Jul 23, 01:36 PM UTC

AMD launched its next-generation AI data center hardware, including the Helios rack-scale system and Instinct MI450 Series GPUs, at an event in San Francisco on July 23, 2026. The integrated platform combines MI455X GPUs, EPYC 'Venice' CPUs, Pensando networking chips, and ROCm software for AI training and inference. AMD announced a strategic partnership with Anthropic to deploy up to 2 gigawatts of MI450 GPUs in Helios systems, with the first gigawatt deployment starting in the first half of 2027, and committed to a strategic equity investment of up to $5 billion in Anthropic. The companies will also collaborate on optimizing workloads using Anthropic's Claude AI. Additionally, Microsoft will deploy Helios on Azure for frontier model inference, with shipments expected in the second half of 2026. AMD aims to challenge Nvidia's dominant 95% market share in data center GPUs, as AMD's data center segment posted $5.78 billion in Q1 2026 revenue, up 57% year-over-year.