AMD unveils EPYC Venice server chips with 256 cores for agentic AI

AMD introduced the EPYC 9006 Series, codenamed Venice, at its Advancing AI 2026 event in San Francisco on July 22–23. The sixth-generation server chips are aimed squarely at agentic AI workloads — running AI agents, feeding accelerators and supporting the enterprise services underneath them. The flagship EPYC 9996 carries up to 256 Zen 6c cores, with pricing starting at $14,904 for enterprise deployments.

The silicon comes off TSMC's 2 nm process and mixes two core flavors, Zen 6 and Zen 6c, spread across four specialized platforms. That setup lets customers pick hardware tuned to specific workloads instead of buying one chip that tries to do everything. AMD also answered memory bandwidth questions with 16-channel DDR5 support delivering up to 1.6 TB/s.

The series adds PCIe Gen 6 support, the high-speed lane system linking processors to accelerators, storage and networking gear inside a server. AMD says it has more than 240 committed platforms for the new lineup, which it credits to unprecedented early demand. A committed platform is a server design from a hardware partner built around the chip.

Morgan Stanley projects roughly 1.25 million EPYC units will ship in 2026, climbing to 6.75 million in 2027. Early production of SP7 models began in July 2026, with OEM availability scheduled for Q4 2026. The broader rollout of the EPYC 9006 Series is expected to run through 2027.