HPC AI infrastructure is no longer a parallel track to traditional computing. They are merging into a unified computing foundation that the supercomputing world has been building toward for years.
The same infrastructure once reserved for national laboratory modeling and simulation has become the foundation for enterprise AI factories, and agents are already running scientific simulations autonomously, said Trish Damkroger (pictured), senior vice president and general manager for HPC and AI infrastructure solutions at Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.
“Those things that we call supercomputers are now the exact same infrastructure that you need for modeling and simulation that you need for AI,” Damkroger said. “I’m finally seeing a lot of this convergence, where you have AI steering your HPC workflows, or agents running your simulations.”
Damkroger spoke with theCUBE’s Dave Vellante at the AMD Advancing AI event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the deepening AMD and HPE partnership, liquid cooling as an enterprise imperative and why sovereign AI is expanding beyond national laboratories. (* Disclosure below.)
HPC AI infrastructure converges around liquid cooling, sovereignty and AMD partnership
HPE’s relationship with AMD encompasses the most powerful HPC AI infrastructure deployments in the world. The Frontier system at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the first to reach hyperscale, is an AMD and HPE platform, and HPE is under contract to deliver Oak Ridge’s next Discovery system, also AMD-based. Lisa Su, president and CEO of AMD, announced both the EPYC 6 processor and AMD Instinct MI430X accelerator at the event, reinforcing an AMD and HPE partnership that Damkroger said extends from national labs to regulated commercial enterprises.
“We have an amazing relationship with AMD,” Damkroger said. “The number two system on the TOP500 is also an AMD system, El Capitan at Lawrence Livermore, where I came from.”
As silicon power requirements continue to soar, liquid cooling is becoming essential. HPE’s Cray heritage gives it a deep foundation in that space, and its GX5000 platform, part of the Discovery system, is designed to handle high thermal design power parts while meeting European requirements for warm-water cooling at up to 45 degrees Celsius. Damkroger said that the same learning curve that shaped HPC AI infrastructure is now a complication for mainstream enterprise data centers and organizations that drag their feet will face mounting cost and density disadvantages as AI silicon continues to scale.
“You’d have one server in a rack if you’re going to air,” Damkroger said. “It’s going to get to the point where it’s going to be ridiculous.”
Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AMD Advancing AI event:
(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AMD Advancing AI event. Neither AMD, the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)
Photo: SiliconANGLE
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