Google Cloud uses Intel's latest Xeon in C3 virtual machines

Intel’s fourth-generation Xeon data center processor, known as Sapphire Rapids has faced multiple delays and is not due for general availability until early next year, but the processor made progress this week with the announcement that Google Cloud is using the new Xeon to power its new C3 virtual machine series.

Google said in a blog post that the C3 series, announced this week at the Google Cloud Next ‘22 event, uses “the 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processor and Google’s custom Intel Infrastructure Processing Unit (IPU).” Though the newest Xeon is now due to be released in the first quarter of 2023, Intel said previously that it was in the hands of some preview customers, one of which apparently was Google. This is in any case the first announcement of the newest Xeon being deployed in any public cloud.

And Google and its own customers appear to have liked what they have seen so far, as Google’s blog post further stated, “C3 machine instances can deliver strong performance gains to enable high performance computing and data-intensive workloads. Customers such as Snap, for example, have seen approximately a 20% increase in performance for a key workload over the previous generation C2.” 

Aaron Sheldon, Senior Software Engineer, Snap Inc., added “We were pleased to observe a 20% increase in performance over the current generation C2 VMs from Google Cloud in testing with one of our key workloads. These continued performance improvements enable better end user experience and application cost efficiency.” 

Google’s C3 also is in a private preview stage with Snap and other customers. Its machine instances “use offload hardware for more predictable and efficient compute, high-performance storage, and a programmable packet processing capability for low latency and accelerated, secure networking,” the blog post stated.

Intel back in August talked about how the next-generation Xeon processor employs a software-first approach to helping customers accelerate their workloads.

Nick McKeown, Senior Vice President, Intel Fellow and General Manager of Network and Edge Group, this week added, “We are pleased to have co-designed the first ASIC Infrastructure Processing Unit with Google Cloud, which has now launched in the new C3 machine series. A first of its kind in any public cloud, C3 VMs will run workloads on 4th Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors while they free up programmable packet processing to the IPUs securely at line rates of 200Gb/s. This Intel and Google collaboration enables customers through infrastructure that is more secure, flexible, and performant.”