AMD Collaborates with Microsoft and Siemens to Support Shift-Left Development for Software-Defined Vehicles

Collaboration enables cloud-based simulation, nested virtualization, and mixed-criticality workload support for automotive developers 

The rise of software-defined vehicles (SDVs) is accelerating automotive innovation. To keep pace, automotive developers are adopting a shift-left approach that enables software validation and testing earlier in the design cycle.  

AMD today announced new capabilities designed to support shift-left development for automotive software using cloud-based simulation and digital twin technologies on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. By enabling a shift-left approach, OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers can improve efficiency, reduce development risks, and accelerate time-to-market for SDVs.

As part of this initiative, AMD introduced its Virtualized Automotive Stack (VAS), now available on AMD Radeon™ PRO V710 GPUs and AMD EPYC™ CPUs as part of the NVads V710 v5-series virtual machines on Azure available across multiple regions worldwide. This integration provides the performance and flexibility needed for automotive software development in cloud environments. 

The VAS stack includes VirtIO for I/O devices and the Xen Hypervisor running on top of Microsoft Hyper-V, enabling nested virtualization on Azure GPU instances for the first time. This capability allows developers to simulate and validate mixed-criticality SDV workloads—such as safety-critical systems, infotainment, and instrument clusters—on centralized SoCs in a secure, cloud-based environment. The combination of VAS and Xen helps provide isolation and robustness, supporting reliable execution of diverse workloads on the same silicon. 

Building on the AMD relationship with Siemens, the Siemens PAVE360™ digital twin simulation environment is now integrated with the AMD VAS stack on Azure. This integration enables developers to leverage AMD compute and graphics technologies for system-level simulation and digital twin capabilities, supporting early validation and helping reduce time-to-market for automotive platforms.

Automotive innovation increasingly depends on the use of cloud infrastructure to enable digital twin simulations for early software development and system validation. The AMD automotive stack with the Xen hypervisor on Microsoft Azure provides essential middleware components, enabling OEMs and Tier-1 suppliers to begin software development earlier and leverage the scalability of cloud platforms in support of SDVs.