Google is making Ampere Computing’s newest microprocessors available on its cloud service, breaking new ground for the startup that has its engineering headquarters in Portland's Pearl District.
It's "the first example of a public cloud going public with the AmpereOne product," Jeff Wittich, Ampere's chief product officer, said Wednesday. "They'll be more, but they're the first."
Ampere, competing in a chip market that includes Intel, says AmpereOne offers a combination of performance and energy efficiency that can temper data-center power use, a growing grid-reliability and climate concern as artificial intelligence and other services boost demand.
AmpereOne is going into "preview" with Alphabet's Google Cloud. That’s a move beyond behind-the-scenes testing that’s been happening and a step toward general availability as Google builds up capacity.
Google Cloud is the third-leading cloud provider with a market share of about 11%. AWS holds one-third of the market, followed by Microsoft's Azure at 21%.
In-house-designed cores
Ampere introduced the AmpereOne chip family in May. Like the company's earlier Ampere Altra offering, it’s based on architecture from Arm Holdings, an energy-efficient alternative to the x86 technology used in chips from Intel and AMD. Arm has its roots in smartphones, but is spreading.
AmpereOne, while still Arm-based, marked a shift for the company to in-house-design of the chip cores, where the main processing happens. That allowed Ampere to "push performance and efficiency in ways that just wouldn't be possible with a core that somebody else built," Wittich said.
Ampere Altra made inroads with Google Cloud as well as Azure and Oracle Cloud, but AmpereOne opens up new ground for the company for large-scale cloud adoption, Wittich said.
"Anyone who is looking to build out a lot of compute at scale, they're going to hone in on the AmpereOne product," he said.
Former Intel president Renee James launched Ampere publicly in 2018. While based in Santa Clara, Calif., it employs around 250 people in Portland, where it continues to grow.
The company last year filed confidential paperwork to go public, but hasn't yet moved forward on an IPO. Arm Holdings' public offering, expected in early September, could revive a tech IPO market that has been quiet, however. Softbank-backed Arm, by the way, holds a 6.8% interest in Ampere, a stake Arm valued at around $400 million in its IPO filing.
