Meta and Arm partner on the Arm AGI CPU for AI data centers

Meta said it is partnering with Arm to develop a new class of CPUs for AI workloads and general-purpose computing across its expanding data center footprint. The first product is the Arm AGI CPU, positioned as a more efficient alternative to legacy server processors for AI-optimized infrastructure. Meta says the Arm AGI CPU is designed to improve performance per rack and support gigawatt-scale AI deployments. It will work alongside Meta’s custom MTIA silicon to build a diversified hardware stack for both training and inference. Arm frames the Arm AGI CPU as built for the “agentic AI” era, where CPUs orchestrate accelerators, memory, storage, networking, and distributed AI tasks. Arm also claims the chip can deliver more than twice the performance per rack of current x86 systems, potentially translating into up to $10 billion in AI data center capex savings per gigawatt of capacity. Key execution details include that Arm AGI CPU is Arm’s first major in-house data center chip effort, with Meta as lead design partner and TSMC manufacturing on a 3-nanometer process; volume production is expected in 2H 2026. Arm says the rack-level scaling ranges from 8,160 cores (air-cooled reference) to 45,000+ cores (liquid-cooled with Supermicro). Meta also plans to release board and rack designs via the Open Compute Project later this year. Launch partners beyond Meta include OpenAI, Cloudflare, SAP, SK Telecom, and Cerebras. Meta shares were around $595.20 (-1.5%) and Arm shares near $135.20 (-1.2%).