11/19/2023 What I Read Last Week
Digital Infrastructure News: Supercomputing news, Microsoft chips, NVIDIA, Digital Realty, and DataBank
Weekly Edition of curated news about Digital Infrastructure
[Link] Absolutely AMAZING 4K stream from Everyday Astronaut of the SpaceX Starship launch.
[Link] I kept searching for the ‘Microsoft Athena’ news, and Wednesday it came: at the Ignite event Microsoft launched two custom-designed chips and integrated systems. The Azure Maia AI Accelerator for AI tasks, and the Azure Cobalt CPU, an Arm-based processor for general purpose compute workloads on the Microsoft Cloud. The news also talks about their custom-built rack for the Maia 100AI Accelerator, which includes a ‘sidekick’ thermal chamber. “The tandem design of rack and sidekick underscores the value of a systems approach to infrastructure, McCullough said. By controlling every facet — from the low-power ethos of the Cobalt 100 chip to the intricacies of datacenter cooling — Microsoft can orchestrate a harmonious interplay between each component, ensuring that the whole is indeed greater than the sum of its parts in reducing environmental impact.”
SC 2023 Event
[Link] The 62nd edition of the TOP500 list of supercomputers was released, with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Frontier system remaining at number one, exceeding one Exaflop/s. The Microsoft Eagle system (in Azure cloud) ranked #3 at 561.2 TFlop/s, and uses Xeon Platinum 8480C processors and NVIDIA H100 accelerators.
[Link] NVIDIA launched its HGX H200 platform, which features the NVIDIA H200 Tensor Core GPU with advanced memory to handle massive amounts of data for generative AI and high performance computing workloads. The company said that Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure will be among the first cloud service providers to deploy H200-based instances starting next year, in addition to CoreWeave, Lambda and Vultr.
[Link] Cerebras announced that the Condor Galaxy network of nine interconnected supercomputers has reached its second phase of build out. With the completion of Condor Galaxy 1, Cerebras and G42 have broken ground on the Condor Galaxy 2 (CG-2). CG-2 will be four exaFLOPs and 54 million AI-optimized compute cores, expanding the Condor Galaxy network to a total of eight exaFLOPs and 108 million cores upon completion.
[Link] Digital Realty, Realty Income form NoVA Development Joint Venture for Build-to-Suit Data Centers. The partnership allows Realty Income to acquire an 80% equity interest in two build-to-suit Northern Virginia data centers, with up to 48 MW of potential IT load.
[Link] DataBank purchases 85 acres of land in Northern Virginia for a new data center campus, with up to 1.4M square feet data center space and 192 MW of power.
[Link] A cool podcast episode of EETimes Brains and Machines, where they interview now-Emeritus Professor Steve Furber as he prepares to leave the University of Manchester. They do a deep dive into Steve’s thoughts on neuromorphic computing and the approach of his more recent project SpiNNaker 2.
[Link] Interesting TeleGeography article on how satellites and fiber optic cables can serve as natural complements to one another.
[Link] The U.S. Department of Energy, and strategic partners, announced the first round of participants dedicated to the Quantum and Space Collaboration. The collaborative effort aims to harness cutting-edge quantum technologies for pivotal advancements in national security, energy, and economic prosperity, while also supporting sustainability goals. Partners include the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate, Nebula Space Enterprises, Accenture, and Infleqtion.
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