Microsoft to use Qualcomm’s 10nm server processor with 48 ARM cores
Qualcomm announces that Microsoft will use its Centriq 2400 server platform. Microsoft will use the ARM processors that are made at 10nm in its data centers for the Azure cloud services. The companies have jointly shown an ARM build of Windows Server.
According to the processor designer, this is a large and long-term collaboration that spans several generations of hardware and software. With that, Microsoft seems to be making a big move from its x86-based servers to ARM chips. Qualcomm Datacenter Technologies announced the deal with Microsoft at the Open Compute Project Summit 2017.
Qualcomm demonstrated Windows Server running on the Centriq 2400 processor. The company says it has worked with Microsoft for years to optimize the operating system for the ARM architecture. This is an internal build from Microsoft. Whether Windows Server for ARM will also be publicly available is not yet known.
Qualcomm has submitted a specification for servers based on the Centriq 2400 platform to the Open Compute Project. That project was set up by Facebook to make as much documentation about data center systems public as possible. The Qualcomm Centriq 2400 Open Compute Motherboard specification is based on Microsoft’s Project Olympus. Under that name, Microsoft made its cloud hardware open source at the end of last year.
The motherboard can accommodate one processor, which will be available in variants with up to 48 cores. Twelve strips of ddr4 memory fit on the board, there is a 50 gigabit nic present and the platform offers 32 pcie lanes.
The Qualcomm Centriq 2400 platform is the first server platform to use processors produced on the 10nm process. The ARM architecture could provide more energy-efficient processors than the commonly used x86 chips, but how Qualcomm’s platform actually performs is not yet known.
Qualcomm announced in 2014 that it would make ARM processors for servers. At the end of 2015, the first samples of server processors with 24 cores were sent to customers. Last December, Qualcomm unveiled its Centriq 2400 server platform.
Microsoft is not only collaborating with Qualcomm on the server side. Late last year, the two companies showed off a Windows 10 build that can run x86 programs on a Snapdragon 835-soc. This would make it possible, for example, to make laptops and smartphones with the ARM soc and to run x86 programs on them.