Traditionally, servers have used x86 processors, such as those made by Intel (mostly) and AMD. These processors have the problem of consuming a lot of energy directly and indirectly. When we refer to indirect, we mean cooling systems.
But, ARM processors are quite a bit more efficient in both ways. They have very low primary consumption as they are based on simplified instruction systems. As they consume less, they generate less heat and require more “simple” cooling systems.
ARM is taking Chinese servers by storm
According to the investment firm Bernstein, about 40% of China’s servers are based on ARM processors. Note that the majority of servers are still based on Intel solutions and, to a lesser extent, AMD chips.
China is betting on ARM processor-based servers, But are not the only ones. Amazon among its AWS catalogue, already has many systems based on these processors due to its high efficiency. Google, Microsoft or NVIDIA They have also adopted these processors. What’s more, let’s remember that NVIDIA wanted to acquire ARM Holdings to develop its own high-performance servers.
The efficiency of ARM solutions is one of the key factors, but not the only one. China has restrictions important when it comes to buy Intel Xeon and AMD EPYC processors. This causes Chinese companies such as Alibaba or Huawei to start developing ARM-based servers.
They not only exist restrictions on chip imports, also to access to new technologies. The United States limits access to TSMC’s most advanced processes, especially Huawei and Phytium, which are on the US blacklist. This factor is limiting them enormously.
Alibaba’s T-Head if you can take advantage of the latest solutions from TSMC. The problem is that cannot license ARM Neoverse V-series cores for high performance computing. Such restriction is due to different export control rules.
Getting Around the Constraints with “Ingenuity”
To eliminate or circumvent these restrictions, RISC-V is being opted for. This is an open source ISA instruction set architecture. Said system eliminates the limitations and its evolution is being really fast.
This architecture allows to design general type kernels with high customization for specific loads. There are many companies that are working on the development of this architecture, as is the case of Ampere. We must add China, who would be showing great interest in RISC-V and promoting the development of solutions based on this architecture.
The great advantage that ARM has is that it has a large following of companies behind it. The Armv8 and Armv9 instruction set is supported by Amazon, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Google, Qualcomm or Samsung, among others. Something that gives them a great advantage.
