Design & Reuse

ARM Servers 'Compelling' for Microsoft

Cloud giant tests Q’comm, Cavium SoCs

Rick Merritt, EETimes
3/9/2017 06:02 AM EST

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Microsoft is testing ARM server SoCs from Cavium, Qualcomm and at least one other supplier, boosting their hopes of cutting into the lucrative dominance of Intel’s x86 in servers.

The data center giant made the announcement at the annual gathering of the Open Compute Project (OCP) here, where Facebook unveiled a refreshed line of servers. Both Facebook and Microsoft announced accelerator systems using NVLink to connect eight Nvidia’s Pascal chips.