AMD unveils Helion racks for AI agents at OCP summit

CPU-only and mixed CPU/GPU configurations due from partners in November

AMD is expanding its rack-scale AI lineup with a design to run AI agents, offering CPU-only configurations or integrated CPU/GPU deployments, and liquid-cooled or air-cooled versions.

Revealed at the Open Compute Project (OCP) Summit 2026 in San Jose, California, the chipmaker's new rack reference design is named Helion, while its existing system carries the moniker Helios, which we can't help feeling is inviting confusion a little.

Helion offers an OCP-compliant blueprint for agentic AI infrastructure built around AMD's CPUs and accelerators.

REG AD

AMD launched Helios earlier this year for frontier-scale AI training and large-scale inference. Helion's enterprise configuration instead combines agent execution and inference within a single rack.

REG AD

Customers can opt for a CPU-only hyperscale configuration or an enterprise configuration with a mix of CPU and GPU blades.

Depending on configuration, AMD advertises up to 32,768 of AMD's "Zen 6" CPU cores, delivered via compute nodes fitted with 256-core versions of its Venice Epyc processor, up to 16 of its Instinct MI350P GPU accelerators, and up to 102 Tbps of networking bandwidth.

The CPU-only hyperscale version offers dedicated capacity for agent execution and connections to separate model inference infrastructure, while the enterprise configuration combines agent execution, GPU inference, and supporting workloads in one rack.

Both configurations offer dense, balanced, or high-performance CPU blades. For dense deployments, EPYC 9006 chips rated at 400 W are used, while performance blades sport a version of the chip with just 96 cores but clocked at 5 GHz. Balanced blades use 256-core processors rated at 600 W.

There are also GPU inference blades, with eight Instinct MI350P GPUs in a 5U server, plus general-purpose blades, intended for database and storage servers or technical compute workloads.

AMD SVP for Compute and Enterprise AI Dan McNamara said agentic AI is not a single workload, spanning enterprise applications and complex workflows, each with different compute requirements.

"To do that takes optimized compute and infrastructure that can adapt to different workloads. With AMD Helion, we are bringing Epyc performance, open software and flexible rack designs together so our partners can build systems around customer needs and make efficient use of available power," he added.

AMD says it plans to contribute the Helion specifications to OCP, making them available to the community for further development and adoption. Partner-built Helion configurations are scheduled for November 2026.

REG AD

In its announcement, AMD cites Cisco, Dell, HPE, Foxconn, Lenovo, Supermicro, and others as on board with the new kit. ®