They are using the FPGAs for specializing network hardware on the fly. This lets them decrease latency across their network as well as allow centralized managem

They are using the FPGAs for specializing network hardware on the fly. This lets them decrease latency across their network as well as allow centralized management. Edit: It looks like they are also allowing applications to use the FGPA-FPGA communication layer to reduce latency for distributed systems. > "All network traffic is routed the FPGA, allowing it to accelerate high-bandwidth flows. An independent PCIe connection to the host is also provided, allowing the FPGA to be used as a local accelerator..." > "By enabling the FPGAs to generate and their own networking packets independent of the each and every FPGA in the datacenter can reach every other one (at a scale of hundreds of thousands) in small number of microseconds, without any intervening. This capability allows hosts to use remote FPGAs for with low latency, improving the economics of the deployment, as hosts running services that do not their local FPGAs can donate them to a global pool and value which would otherwise be stranded."