Tencent Cloud To Start Selling Its Own AMD-powered Servers

Tencent Cloud, a subsidiary of China’s most valuable public company, is about to start selling servers.

The cloud vendor is looking to commercialize the StarLake hardware, developed internally in partnership with AMD and based on second generation EPYC processors.

The servers will be available in Southeast Asia – availability further afield is unlikely.

“As a demonstration of Tencent Cloud's dedication to always providing cloud products and services through highly compatible architecture as well as simple and reliable design, we are pleased to announce our technology collaboration with AMD, a multinational developer of computer processors and technologies,” said Poshu Yeung, senior vice president at Tencent Cloud International.

“By working hand in hand, we can provide users with the StarLake server with higher performance, reasonable price and lower power."

Do-It-Yourself

Tencent revealed the first StarLake sever in 2019 at the Tencent Global Digital Ecosystem Conference, designed to power its own cloud services. The system was a custom implementation of AMD’s Rome, based on the Zen 2 microarchitecture and using a proprietary cooling design.

The project was a success: Tencent said the server was able to effectively meet 98% of its cloud application scenarios. It then launched a dedicated hardware design facility called StarLake Lab in 2020.

A year later, and Tencent is ready to sell its homebrew equipment to other businesses, calling it the perfect fit for private cloud deployments.

Originally designed for hyperscale computing, StarLake servers promise minimal cost per VM, with the list of features advertising 20% fewer components than a typical server.

Proprietary cooling design is still very much a part of the package – with the press release noting something called “thermosiphon heat dissipation technology,” but not providing any further details.