A logo of mobile application Instagram is seen on a mobile phone, during a conference in Mumbai, India, September 20, 2023. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas
(Reuters) -Meta Platforms said it is partnering with chip tech provider Arm Holdings to power the systems that drive personalization across its apps, including Facebook and Instagram, as companies rush to upgrade the chip technology underpinning their services.
The social media giant will use Arm-based data center platforms to power its AI ranking and recommendation systems, which are key to discovery and personalization across its apps.
A deal with Meta would mark another major validation of Arm's technology as the SoftBank‑backed company competes with the entrenched x86 architecture used by Intel and AMD.
Arm provides chip architecture that serves as a blueprint for what a central processing unit can do and which applications it can run.
The companies said the Arm‑based approach promises higher performance and lower power use than x86 systems.
While Arm-based chips already power a large portion of the world's smartphones, they are quickly gaining traction in Intel and AMD's core markets - personal computers and server CPUs.
Separately, Meta said it will invest $1.5 billion in a Texas data center, breaking ground on its 29th facility globally as it expands infrastructure for artificial intelligence workloads.
The companies said they have worked together to adapt Meta’s AI infrastructure software for Arm architectures, making the software improvements open source and freely available for anyone to use.
The open-source effort could boost adoption of Arm-based architecture by improving software compatibility, a key hurdle to wider use.
Meta and Arm said they plan to keep adding improvements to these open-source projects.
(Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid)
