By Mels Dees
Publication Date: 2026-05-19 09:46:00
VMware has released a first public preview of ESX for Arm systems. With this move, the virtualization company is explicitly exploring a future in which Arm processors play a greater role in data centers and edge environments.
The preview appeared without a major announcement, reports The Register, but documentation shows that VMware now has a working version of its hypervisor running on Arm-based servers. Supported systems include those from HPE and Gigabyte with Ampere processors and a Supermicro server with an Nvidia Grace chip.
For now, this is still a limited test version. Several well-known VMware components are still missing, including vSAN for hyper-converged storage and NSX for network virtualization. VMware also advises users to manage Arm environments separately from existing x86 infrastructure. An Arm cluster must therefore be managed from a separate vCenter installation on x86 hardware.
At the same time, however, VMware is expanding support in its desktop software. New versions of Workstation and Fusion can connect to external Arm-based ESXi systems. This makes it possible to access virtual machines on Arm servers directly from existing management environments.
Growing Interest in Arm
With this move, VMware is responding to a trend that has been visible in the infrastructure market for some time. Arm processors are gaining ground because they are generally more energy-efficient than traditional x86 CPUs. As a result,…