We’re excited to announce Azure HBv4 and HX-series Digital Machines (VMs) are actually usually obtainable. With the overall availability, Microsoft is providing prospects the primary VMs that includes the newest 4th Gen AMD EPYC™ processors with AMD 3D V-Cache™ expertise (codename ‘Genoa-X’), paired with 400 Gigabit NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand. Azure HBv4 and HX-series VMs supply management ranges of efficiency, scaling effectivity, and cost-effectiveness for quite a lot of HPC workloads resembling computational fluid dynamics (CFD), monetary companies calculations, finite ingredient evaluation (FEA), geoscience simulations, climate simulation, rendering, quantum chemistry, and silicon design.
In comparison with Azure HBv3-series VMs utilizing 3rd Gen AMD EPYC™ processors (codename ‘Milan-X’), already the highest efficiency VMs for HPC workloads on the general public cloud, prospects will see as much as:
- 1.6 occasions larger efficiency for rendering
- 2.4 occasions larger efficiency for climate simulation
- 2.7 occasions larger efficiency for CFD
- 4.2 occasions larger efficiency for molecular dynamics
- 5.7 occasions larger efficiency for structural evaluation
Go to our technical weblog for extra detailed efficiency and scalability info and see under for a abstract of efficiency throughout a various collection of broadly used excessive efficiency computing (HPC) workloads.

Determine 1: Efficiency comparability abstract of Azure HBv4/HX-series VMs to HBv3-series throughout various engineering and scientific computing workloads.
Azure HBv4 and HX-series VMs can be found at present within the Azure East United States area, and can quickly come to the Azure Korea Central, South Central US, Sweden Central, and Southeast Asia areas.
Sooner, more economical, and extra energy environment friendly applied sciences for HPC
Azure HBv4 and HX sequence VMs function 4th Gen AMD EPYC™ processors with AMD 3D V-cache™ as a result of they ship the quickest ranges of efficiency to quite a lot of reminiscence performance-bound HPC workloads. The two.3 GB L3 cache per VM can ship as much as 5.7 terabytes per second of bandwidth to amplify as much as 780 gigabytes per second of bandwidth from most important reminiscence, for a market main blended common of 1.2 terabytes per second of efficient reminiscence bandwidth throughout a broad vary of buyer workloads. For widely-used reminiscence bandwidth-bound workloads like OpenFOAM, HBv4-series VMs with 4th Gen AMD EPYC CPUs with 3D V-Cache expertise are already yielding as much as 1.49 occasions larger efficiency than commonplace 4th Gen EPYC processors in Azure’s inside testing.

Determine 2: Efficiency comparability of HBv4/HX throughout Preview (no 3D V-Cache) versus Normal Availability (contains 3D V-Cache) from 1-8 VMs on CFD workload OpenFOAM.
Azure HBv4 and HX sequence VMs ship these vital efficiency enhancements at decrease price and power consumed per job instantly proportional to the speed of workload speedup (resembling 25 % quicker efficiency on a given HPC workload with AMD 3D V-Cache in comparison with commonplace 4th Gen AMD EPYC CPUs interprets to the shopper incurring 25 % decrease price and energy consumed per job).
Study extra about efficiency and scalability throughout a variety of purposes, fashions, and configurations, and go to Azure Docs for full technical specs of HBv4 and HX sequence VMs.
Steady enchancment for much more HPC prospects
Microsoft is delivering a brand new period of high-performance computing within the cloud; one outlined by steady enhancements to the essential analysis and enterprise workloads that matter most to our prospects. Via our partnership with AMD, we’re making this imaginative and prescient a actuality by elevating the bar on the efficiency, scalability, and worth we ship with each launch of Azure H-series household VMs for our HPC prospects.
With the discharge of Azure HX sequence VMs, a brand new class throughout the Azure H-series household, we’re extending our dedication to prospects working giant reminiscence workloads like structural evaluation and semiconductor design. The 1.4 terabytes of reminiscence in each HX-series VM permits prospects to run extra of an information intensive workload out of reminiscence for vital speedups and value reductions. For broadly used automotive simulators like MSC Nastran, Azure’s inside testing reveals the brand new HX sequence VMs yield as much as 5.7 occasions larger efficiency than HBv3-series VMs, and 9.2 occasions larger efficiency than HC-series VMs launched 4 years in the past that includes expertise nonetheless broadly utilized in on-premises HPC environments at present.

Determine 3: Efficiency uplift from 2019–2023 on Azure H-series household Digital Machines for structural evaluation software MSC NASTRAN.
Buyer Momentum
“Supplies sciences researchers, together with these working with Azure Quantum, stand to learn enormously from the introduction of Azure HBv4 digital machines that includes highly effective new processors and networking applied sciences. The 4x efficiency improve on NAMD reveals as soon as once more Microsoft’s dedication to constantly making essentially the most superior computing assets obtainable by means of Azure cloud companies.”—Nathan Baker, Senior Director, Partnerships for Chemistry and Supplies, Azure Quantum.

“AMD EPYC™ processors, obtainable by means of the Azure HB-series household of Digital Machines by way of Ansys Cloud, have been instrumental in advancing our potential to ship extra CFD simulations in assist of our Motorsports efforts in North America. We firmly consider that accelerating our simulation capabilities and the engineering insights gained from this work have been key to our latest string of successes in each IndyCar and IMSA prototypes. We’re trying ahead to evaluating the efficiency of Azure HBv4 and HX-series VMs powered by the 4th Era of AMD EPYC™ processors with AMD 3D V-Cache™ expertise within the very close to future. We’re assured that AMD and Azure will proceed to ship on their promise of sustainable efficiency to be realized in time-to and cost-of resolution for our very complicated CFD fashions with these processors.”—Kelvin Fu, Vice President at Honda Efficiency Growth.

“With Azure high-performance computing, we will run extra jobs and duties in parallel. We cut back the time to market by rising the effectivity and the standard of the product that we launch. This resolution helps us to enhance the product high quality and cut back the chance of a supply delay.”—Anna Palo, Digital Design Architect, STMicroelectronics.

“The mix of Azure HPC and AMD (Superior Micro Gadgets) processors affords enhanced efficiency with parallel processing, enhance price effectivity, versatile scalability, heterogeneous computing and power effectivity alignment to PETRONAS’ sustainability initiatives, contributing to a greener computing surroundings.”—Muthu Kumar Sockalingam, Senior Supervisor at PETRONAS Digital.
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