Microsoft on Tuesday announced new custom chips aimed at powering workloads on its Azure cloud and increasing security, especially new hardware accelerators that can manage data processing, networking, and storage-related tasks.
Azure Boost DPU is Microsoft's first data processing unit and is designed for “high-efficiency, low-power data-centric workloads,” the company says. Microsoft expects future DPU-powered Azure servers to run storage workloads with four times the performance of existing servers and consume one-third the power.
“Azure Boost DPU, designed for scale-out, composable workloads on Azure, delivers efficiencies in storage, networking, acceleration, and more for cloud infrastructure,” Microsoft said in a blog post shared with TechCrunch. states.
Of course, these benchmarks don't tell you much. For which workloads is Azure Boost DPU more power efficient and faster than exactly what existing hardware? Microsoft did not say when Azure customers would see these benefits, and I didn't even mention it.
Azure Boost DPU can be traced back to Fungible, a DPU fabricator that Microsoft acquired last December. Microsoft reportedly paid about $190 million for the company, which was founded by former Apple and Juniper Networks engineers. Following the acquisition, the Fungible team joined Microsoft's Infrastructure Engineering division.
Microsoft's new Azure Boost DPU. Image credit: Microsoft
A DPU is specialized hardware designed to handle specific data processing tasks, such as data traffic security and network routing. These are intended to offload the CPU and other chips for core computing tasks associated with certain workloads, including AI workloads.
The DPU market has gained attention over the past few years. Nvidia began offering its BlueField series of DPUs in 2019, and AMD has been selling Pensando DPUs since 2022. Amazon Web Services' (AWS) Nitro card provides DPU-like functionality, and Google worked with Intel to develop a chip that performs many of the functions. Same functionality as DPU.
The efficiency gains offered by DPUs are attractive to hyperscalers, which are building increasingly larger and more power-hungry data centers, driven by the demand for AI to scale cloud infrastructure. Microsoft announced it will pay an additional $800 million in data center energy costs in 2022 as consumption increases.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang argued that CPUs, GPUs, and DPUs form the foundation of data centers. In his vision, the CPU handles general processing, the GPU powers high-speed computing, and the DPU manages data flow.
According to Allied Analytics, the DPU chip market could reach a value of $5.5 billion by 2031 if interest in DPUs remains stable.
custom security chip
Microsoft also revealed the Azure Integrated Hardware Security Module (HSM). With Azure Integrated HSM, a new in-house cloud security chip, signing keys (basically digital cryptographic signatures) and encryption keys (bit strings used to encrypt data) can be used without sacrificing performance or increasing latency. can be included in a secure module without having to do anything. Microsoft said.
“Azure Integrated HSM will be installed on all new servers in Microsoft datacenters starting next year to improve protection across the Azure hardware fleet for both sensitive and general-purpose workloads,” Microsoft said. says.
Azure Integrated HSM is Microsoft's second security chip after Pluton, a consumer chip built into Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm processors. It's also the company's answer to cloud rivals' proprietary solutions. AWS' Nitro handles specific security tasks, while Google has a security chip built into its Google Cloud servers called Titan.
Azure integrated HSM. Image credit: Microsoft
Custom silicon can improve security, but it's not a panacea. In 2020, researchers discovered an “unfixable” flaw in Apple's T2 security chip that could potentially expose Macs to the very threats the chip was designed to protect against. Microsoft did not reveal details about vulnerability testing for its Azure Integrated HSM, but we expect it to do so as the chip gets closer to launch.
In the wake of the high-profile hack and damning government report, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella claimed that security is now the company's top priority.
“In today's rapidly changing threat landscape, influenced by global events and advances in AI, security must be a top priority,” Vasu Jakkal, CVP of Security at Microsoft, told TechCrunch. stated in a shared post. “New attack techniques are challenging our security posture and forcing the global security community to rethink how we protect organizations.”