Jaw-dropping 256-core CPU will debut in 2025 as Arm partner turns heat up on AMD and Nvidia — Ampere conspicuously leaves Intel out of equation as it claims CPU leadership ahead of Epyc

Having debuted its AmpereOne processor in 2023, revealing a powerhouse CPU with up to 192 single-threaded cores, the highest in the industry, Ampere is now preparing an updated version to arrive in 2025, it has revealed

The company’s annual Strategy & Roadmap Update video (which you can watch below) reveals more on its future plans, including that the next generation of AmpereOne will be fabricated on a 3nm process node (its predecessor is 5nm) and have up to 256 cores and 12-channel DDR5 memory.

“We’re in an extreme hype cycle on AI,” Renée James, Ampere’s Founder and CEO said in the video. “This is evidenced by the near-panic purchasing of GPU capacity at the expense of all other forms of data compute. This too shall pass. All hype cycles adjust back to a new normal… At Ampere, we’re working hard to enable and build products for that phase of the new normal, the next decade of AI compute.”

40 percent more performance than other CPUs

James says Ampere is “extending our product family to include a new 256-core product that delivers 40 percent more performance than any other CPU in the market” but it’s not just about cores. There are several new features that the company says will “enable efficient performance, memory, caching, and AI compute”. The future chip will use the same air-cooled thermal solution as the current one does.

Ampere has compared its CPUs to Nvidia’s aging A10 GPU for AI inference, showing how it can run LLM models efficiently and use less power. This is a big area for Ampere which announced, as part of its roadmap update, that it is working with Qualcomm to develop a joint solution for AI inferencing using Qualcomm’s Cloud AI 100.

The company also claims that AmpereOne offers higher performance per watt than AMD’s EPYC “Bergamo”. However, as Serve The Home points out, “Ampere is using an estimated score for its part and also de-rating the AMD EPYC Bergamo performance normalizing it to GCC 13 performance.”

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