By Stephen Nellis
(Reuters) – Ampere Computing on Thursday released a new family of data center chips with technology it has custom-designed for cloud computing companies.
Founded by former Intel Corp president Renee James, Ampere has focused on courting cloud companies that buy thousands of chips at a time and in turn rent them out. The company has deals in place with Alphabet Inc’s Google Cloud, Microsoft Corp’s Azure and Oracle Corp’s cloud unit, among others.
Unlike Intel, Ampere uses a computing architecture from SoftBank Group Corp-owned Arm Ltd, which is also an investor in Ampere. But the new AmpereOne offerings announced Thursday are the first that use Ampere’s own custom-designed computing cores, which are the most important part of the chips, which are in turn the brains of data center servers that power everything from business apps to social media sites.
The new Ampere chips will have as many as 192 of those cores where Intel chips tend to have only a few dozen. The high core counts are because cloud companies make money by slicing up chips and selling just a piece of their computing power to customers, and having a large number of cores makes doing so easier.
After Ampere disclosed its approach, Advanced Micro Devices announced a 128-core chip based on the what is called the “x86” architecture used by AMD and Intel. Intel also has a high-core-count chip in the works.
“It’s flattering that the x86 vendors have been able to get closer to us, but we’re well on our way to higher core counts now,” said Jeff Wittich, Ampere’s chief product officer.
Ampere last year filed a confidential registration with U.S. securities regulators for an initial public offering. Oracle, where Ampere’s CEO James sits on the board, is a major investor. James declined to say when Ampere might go public.
“We did not pull our registration. We are ever hopeful that the market will open and that it will open for growth companies,” James said.
(Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco; Editing by Mark Potter)
