Lenovo, Intel partner for HPC, AI push

Chinese server maker Lenovo and US chip giant Intel have entered into a global partnership to extend their positions in the high-performance computing (HPC) and AI sectors.

The 'multiyear collaboration' builds on the companies’ long-standing partnership in the data center, and will see Lenovo optimize “Intel’s full portfolio of HPC and AI hardware and software solutions to serve as the foundation for its market strategy.”

Stronger together

Essentially, the arrangement will see the combination of second-generation Intel Xeon Scalable platform and Lenovo Neptune liquid cooling technology, which they claim has already produced remarkable results from their joint engineering.

Both firms point out that 173 of the world’s top 500 fastest supercomputers across 19 markets run on Lenovo servers. 17 of the world’s top 25 research universities rely on Lenovo infrastructure.

“Our goal is to further accelerate innovation into the exascale era, aggressively waterfalling these solutions to scientists and businesses of all sizes to speed discovery and outcomes,” said Kirk Skaugen, EVP of Lenovo and president of the company's Data Center Group.

“Lenovo’s Neptune liquid cooling, in combination with the 2nd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable platform, helps customers unlock new insights and deliver unprecedented outcomes at new levels of energy efficiency."

There are three main focus areas for the collaboration.

First, it seeks to help with systems and solutions, thanks to the combination of Lenovo’s portfolio, including Lenovo TruScale Infrastructure, and a number of Intel technologies including Intel’s Xe computing architecture; Intel Optane DC persistent memory; Intel oneAPI programming framework; and both current and future generations of Intel Xeon Scalable processors.

The second focus area is on software optimization for HPC and AI convergence. This will see Lenovo expanding its smarter software offerings, including optimizing Lenovo’s LiCO HPC/AI software stack for Intel’s next-generation technologies, and alignment with the Intel oneAPI programming framework.

“Additionally, the collaboration will work to enable DAOS advanced storage frameworks and other exascale-class software optimizations, targeted at helping HPC and AI users run their applications with greater ease than before,” the two firms said.

The third focus area is to help create a new ecosystem for the convergence of HPC and AI.

“This includes building joint 'HPC & AI centers of excellence' around the world to further enable research and university centers to develop solutions that address some of the most pervasive world challenges, including genomics, cancer, weather and climate, space exploration and more,” the firms said.

Intel launched its second-generation CPUs, FPGAs, different types of memory, Ethernet, and a host of other developments, at its Data-Centric Event in San Francisco back in April.

source datacenterdynamics

Industry: Data Centre