Nvidia has won processor business from cloud computing outfit Modal, giving Intel and AMD another reason to dislike its expansion beyond graphics chips.
According to Reuters, Modal plans to use Nvidia’s Arm-compatible Vera CPUs to run AI agents, after previously relying entirely on Intel and AMD processors.
The company said early tests delivered up to twice the task throughput of an equivalent Intel Granite Rapids machine when running many workloads simultaneously.
Individual tasks on an otherwise quiet server showed smaller advantages, and Vera didn’t win every test. The impressive numbers emerged when the machines became crowded.
Modal built its benchmark around 50 tasks, including compiling software, searching files, Git operations and device emulation. Modal removed network calls to isolate CPU work.
The company attributes Vera’s performance under load to its high memory bandwidth, which helps it accommodate more competing workloads without slowing individual jobs. These are Modal’s early workload-specific results, leaving the universal victory parade in its box.
Modal chief executive Erik Bernhardsson said the company would keep its Intel and AMD hardware and assign jobs to whichever processors perform best.
“Both rivals are developing newer chips that could narrow the gap. We’ll test them when they’re available,” Bernhardsson said.
Nvidia expects at least $20 billion in Vera sales this fiscal year, targeting a CPU market it values at approximately $200 billion.
