GoKawiilAMD unveils Helion rack reference design built around Zen 6 'Venice' EPYC CPUs
AMD introduced Helion, a new 21-inch rack-scale reference design built to the Open Compute Project's ORv4 and DC-MHS standards, alongside last year's Helios design. Helion supports 44 OpenU trays and can house up to 128 EPYC 9996 'Venice' CPUs in a CPU-only configuration, totaling 32,768 Zen 6 cores per rack, with both air- and liquid-cooling options. AMD will not sell the racks itself; OEMs and ODMs will bring Helion-based systems to market, with partners to be named by CEO Lisa Su at the OCP Global Summit.
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By contributing Helion as an open reference design rather than a product, AMD appears to be positioning itself to standardize CPU-heavy infrastructure for agentic AI workloads across multiple hardware makers, potentially accelerating adoption compared to a proprietary approach. The company suggests Helios AI-training customers may also deploy Helion racks, hinting at a combined CPU-plus-accelerator data center strategy, though exact partners and real-world configurations remain unconfirmed until AMD's keynote announcement.
- Helion is an open rack-scale reference design based on OCP's ORv4 and DC-MHS standards.
- It can support up to 128 EPYC 9996 'Venice' CPUs for 32,768 Zen 6 cores per rack in CPU-only setups.
- AMD won't sell Helion racks directly; OEM/ODM partners and deployment details are expected at the OCP Global Summit keynote.
Source: tomshardware.com — Jake Roach, 2026-10-12
Published there as: “AMD debuts Helion reference design for agentic AI servers with up to 32,768 Zen 6 ‘Venice’ cores”
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