AMD launched its next generation of AI data center hardware Thursday at an event in San Francisco, introducing the Helios rack-scale system, which combines Instinct MI455X GPUs, EPYC "Venice" CPUs, Pensando networking chips, and ROCm software for AI training and inference. The company also expected to formally launch its Venice CPU for data centers. On Wednesday, AMD announced a partnership with Anthropic to deploy up to 2 gigawatts of Instinct MI450 Series GPUs in Helios rack-scale systems, with the first gigawatt beginning in the first half of 2027, and committed to a strategic equity investment of up to $5 billion in Anthropic. The partnership includes a multi-year engineering collaboration to use Anthropic's Claude AI to optimize workloads for AMD Instinct GPUs and accelerate ROCm software development. AMD also announced an expanded partnership with Microsoft, under which Microsoft will deploy Helios on Azure for frontier model inference, with shipping expected to begin in the second half of 2026. AMD positions Helios as its first rival to Nvidia's rack-scale AI systems. Nvidia commands upward of 95% of the data center GPU market, with AMD holding around 4.5%. AMD's data center segment posted $5.78 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2026, a 57% increase from the prior year.