Amazon's Cloud Unit Has Designed a More Powerful Datacenter Chip

Amazon's cloud computing unit has designed a second, more powerful generation of datacenter processor chip, Reuters reported Thursday, the latest sign that the e-commerce company is pouring money into custom silicon for its fastest-growing business. From a report: The new Amazon Web Services chip uses technology from SoftBank Group-owned Arm Holdings, the sources said. One of the sources familiar with the matter said it will be at least 20% faster than Amazon's first Arm-based chip, named Graviton, which was released last year as a low-cost option for easier computing tasks. If Amazon Web Services' chip efforts are successful, it could lessen the unit's reliance on Intel and Advanced Micro Devices for server chips. In cloud computing, businesses rent out servers from Amazon instead of running their own datacenters. Analysts expect Amazon's cloud unit to generate $34.9 billion in sales in 2019, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

and it just costs less...

[The New Guy 2.0]

AWS has gone through too many price cuts, and the Dummies book which was about pricing is woefully out of date. Right now, the limit on its Lightsail service seems to be that they've only got slow processors, and this could be the solution for that. Good luck Jeff!

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Right now, the limit on its Lightsail service seems to be that they've only got slow processors, and this could be the solution for that.

Not unless 20% faster than slow will solve it.

Helpful details

[Dan East]

In cloud computing, businesses rent out servers from Amazon instead of running their own datacenters.

I like how some summaries provide information that 99% of Slashdot readers already know, while obscure stories about things 99% of Slashdot readers have never heard about are extremely specific and opaque.

Re:

[spudnic]

The editors have to understand what they're posting about in order to write up and explanation. ;)

Children grow up.

[Ostracus]

Looks to me like ARM is growing up. Becoming more in line with other high-powered chips like Power 9 and x86.

Re:

[jon3k]

There have been several false starts of ARM datacenter CPU but I think we may finally hit critical mass soon. This along with the new Fujitsu A64FX [nextplatform.com] make me wonder if ARM really will be able to compete with x86 CPU in the datacenter soon.

Meet me in the cloud

[Jesus Q. Christ]

In the Rapture, I'll be reuniting with my followers in the cloud.

I'm leaning toward Amazon, but sorry Jeff, no guarantees.

Re:

[ISoldat53]

This is how Skynet begins. Computers building other computers.

Datacenter Chip?

[lazarus]

From the summary I assumed that this chip was designed to be part of a BMS [wikipedia.org] or a DCIM. But no, it's actually about cloud computing.

Perhaps we could call it a cloud computing CPU or even a micro services CPU (if you really feel the need to be edgy)? A data centre is a building and has its own set of technology and features.

Re:

[PPH]

From the summary, I assumed they were replacing the Cheetos in the vending machine.

Re: Datacenter Chip?

[tigersha]

No you can either be in the cloud or on the edge. No edginess about clouds allowed.

Rise of the ASICs / Configurable Cores.

[0100010001010011]

Expect to see more of this in the future. General Purpose chips are a kitchen sink of features. They're great to make sure *everything* runs, but once you profile your use case I doubt you're using everything that they include.

I'm sure Amazon profiled what each of their servers actually do and asked ARM to put them together an instruction set specifically for AWS. (And that instruction set may be different for the 'web' servers vs 's3' servers. AVX512 is great for numerical functions, I'm not sure if that

Re:

[DontBeAMoran]

I just configured a CPU that can only multiply two address spaces together and I was quoted 25 cents for a 50 trillion hertz chip.