- HPE reveals rack-scale system containing 81,920 CPU cores
- AMD Venice processors power HPE’s next-generation Cray infrastructure
- One 42U rack delivers unprecedented levels of computing density
During its recent HPE Discover 2026 event, the company revealed new Cray GX5000 hardware featuring next-generation AMD EPYC Venice processors, with specifications that push server density well beyond current deployments.
The system combines multiple compute blades, liquid cooling infrastructure, networking hardware, and memory resources inside a single 42U rack configuration.
HPE revealed a Cray GX5000 configuration designed to deliver up to 81,920 CPU cores in one rack.
Dense compute architecture pushes rack capacity higher
The HPE Cray GX5000 platform follows the AMD EPYC 9965, a 192-core processor that represented one of AMD’s highest-core-count server CPUs before Venice arrived.
While the EPYC 9965 increased processor-level density, the Venice-based system takes a broader approach by combining multiple CPUs, memory resources, and cooling infrastructure inside a single rack.
At the center of the system is the HPE Cray GX250a compute blade, which houses eight AMD EPYC Venice processors.
The compute blade incorporates power delivery, liquid cooling channels, memory subsystems, storage devices, and networking components within a compact design.
HPE stated that a fully populated rack can deliver 81,920 CPU cores, although exact processor configurations were not disclosed.
Based on the rack specifications, the system reportedly uses 80 multi-node motherboards and can support as much as 1.28PB of RAM.
Each Venice processor connects to 16 memory channels, creating substantial memory bandwidth for large-scale computing workloads.
