AMD Instinct MI500 UAL256 Mega Pod should scale up to 256 GPUs, 64 EPYC 'Verano' CPUs

AMD will release its next-gen Instinct MI500 Scale Up Mega Pod with a huge 256 x MI500 AI chips spread across three interconnected racks, with next-gen AMD EPYC "Verano" CPUs.

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The new MI500 Scale Up Mega Pod will feature 256 physical GPU packages, reports SemiAnalysis on X, versus just 144 physical GPU packages for NVIDIA's next-gen Kyber VR300 NVL576 AI server. Each of the outer racks would house 32 compute trays per rack, with 18 switch trays in the middle, for a total of 64 compute trays per Mega Pod.

Each of the new Mega Pods would feature 256 physical/logical GPU packages, compared to 144 physical/logical GPU packages for NVIDIA's upcoming Kyber VR300 NVL576 AI servers with new Vera Rubin AI GPUs inside. Instinct MI500 UAL256 will be AMD's second-gen rack-scale AI system, after the upcoming Instinct MI450X IF128 known as "Helios" which will be launching in 2H 2026.

AMD's new Instinct MI500 UAL256 Scale Up Mega Pod is expected to launch in 2027, which is the year we'll see the next-gen Instinct MI500 AI accelerator and new EPYC "Verano" CPU launched.

Each of AMD's new Instinct MI500 UAL256 Scale Up Mega Pod will split the compute into two 32-rack cabinets, with a central rack connecting them and the 18 switching trays for networking, with each of the networking trays featuring four 102.4T "Vulcano" switch ASICs, designed for 800G external throughput, fabbed on TSMC's 3nm process node.

AMD recently detailed a few things at its recent Advancing AI event, but we still don't know if AMD will be increasing the CPU core count above 256 cores per package for EPYC "Venice". The new EPYC "Verano" will continue living on with the Socket SP7 ecosystem, which means we'll see the same memory and PCIe interfaces introduced in 2026, including PCIe Gen6, UALink, and Ultra Ethernet.