In a significant move to accelerate artificial intelligence infrastructure development, AMD and Meta have announced an expanded strategic partnership centered on deploying up to 6 gigawatts of AMD Instinct graphics processing units across multiple generations. This multi-year agreement builds upon the companies' existing collaboration and aligns their technology roadmaps across silicon, systems, and software to create AI platforms specifically optimized for Meta's demanding workloads.
Strategic Expansion of AI Infrastructure
The 6-gigawatt agreement represents a substantial escalation of the partnership between these technology giants, with the first deployment phase expected to begin in the second half of 2026. This initial phase will utilize a custom AMD Instinct GPU based on the MI450 architecture, specifically engineered to handle Meta's AI workloads at gigawatt-scale operations.
Technical Specifications and Timeline
The deployment will be powered by custom AMD Instinct MI450-based GPUs paired with 6th Generation AMD EPYC CPUs, codenamed "Venice." These systems will run on ROCm software and be built upon the AMD Helios rack-scale architecture, which was jointly developed by AMD and Meta through the Open Compute Project to enable scalable, rack-level AI infrastructure.
"We are proud to expand our strategic partnership with Meta as they push the boundaries of AI at unprecedented scale," stated Dr. Lisa Su, chair and CEO of AMD. "This multi-year, multi-generation collaboration across Instinct GPUs, EPYC CPUs and rack-scale AI systems aligns our roadmaps to deliver high-performance, energy-efficient infrastructure optimized for Meta's workloads, accelerating one of the industry's largest AI deployments and placing AMD at the center of the global AI buildout."
Deepening Collaboration Across Multiple Technologies
Beyond the GPU partnership, AMD and Meta are expanding their collaboration on AMD EPYC processors. Meta has been deploying millions of AMD EPYC CPUs alongside significant installations of AMD Instinct MI300 and MI350 series GPUs across their global infrastructure. As AI infrastructure grows in both scale and complexity, CPUs have become a strategic pillar of the AI compute stack, enabling crucial efficiency, scalability, and orchestration capabilities alongside GPUs.
Building on this deep roadmap alignment, Meta will serve as a lead customer for 6th Generation AMD EPYC CPUs ("Venice") and "Verano," a next-generation EPYC processor designed with workload-specific optimizations to deliver leadership performance-per-dollar-per-watt metrics.
Financial and Strategic Alignment
As part of this comprehensive agreement, AMD has issued Meta a performance-based warrant for up to 160 million shares of AMD common stock. This warrant is structured to vest as specific milestones associated with Instinct GPU shipments are achieved. The first tranche will vest with the initial 1-gigawatt of shipments, with additional tranches vesting as Meta's purchases scale to the full 6 gigawatts. Vesting is further tied to AMD achieving certain stock price thresholds, while exercise is connected to Meta achieving key technical and commercial milestones.
"We're excited to form a long-term partnership with AMD to deploy efficient inference compute and deliver personal superintelligence," said Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta. "This is an important step for Meta as we diversify our compute. I expect AMD to be an important partner for many years to come."
Industry Implications and Future Outlook
This expanded partnership positions AMD as a central player in Meta's ambitious AI infrastructure plans, which represent one of the industry's largest AI deployments. The collaboration spans multiple technology generations and includes comprehensive alignment across GPU and CPU silicon, systems architecture, and software development.
The AMD Helios rack-scale architecture, announced at the 2025 Open Compute Project Global Summit, forms the foundation for this deployment, enabling the scalable, rack-level AI infrastructure necessary to support Meta's growing computational demands. This partnership not only accelerates Meta's AI capabilities but also strengthens AMD's position in the competitive AI hardware market, particularly against rivals like NVIDIA in the high-performance computing space.
