NVDIA to manufacture American made AI supercomputers in U.S.

[hedrick]

First, the "news" in the article is actually kind of hidden:

NVidia to begin building "supercomputers".

NVidia is a chip and tool company. They have not been a player in supercomputer building. (Running "AI" on a bunch of GPUs doesn't make a supercomputer.)

The chip plants are already in the US and are not new.

Supercomputers are *ALREADY* built in the US. Cray has built supercomputers in Wisconsin for decades. IBM builds them in NY state, and Dell in Texas.

Actually, Nvidia has been building their own AI systems for years. Most people bought them from Supermicro, etc, because they were cheaper, but Nvidia made whole systems as well. For newer high-end systems Nvidia is making more of the sysem. There will still be systems with Supermicro name plates, but most of the cost will be things built by Nividia, and Nvidia specifies the design in detail. if TSMC, Foxconn, etc, are ready, there's no reason Nvidia can't make whole systems here.

Are they supercomputers? I depends upon your definition. Things like the top 500 are collections of systems. No one Nvidia rack will be on that list. So if you think of Nvidia producing racks of equipment, they aren't inndivdualy supercomputers, nor is anyone else's products. But the amount of computing in a rack seems to me to justify using the term informally. Incidentally, the Top 500 list shows that 5% of the systems are from Nvidia. I'd bet that more of them use Nvidia GPUs.

A few years ago people built GPUs using Nvidia chips. For high-end systems, that's no longer the case. You now have to get a whole assembly from Nvidia, and in the newest systems that includes the CPUs.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Actually, Nvidia has been building their own AI systems for years. Most people bought them from Supermicro, etc, because they were cheaper, but Nvidia made whole systems as well. For newer high-end systems Nvidia is making more of the sysem. There will still be systems with Supermicro name plates, but most of the cost will be things built by Nividia, and Nvidia specifies the design in detail. if TSMC, Foxconn, etc, are ready, there's no reason Nvidia can't make whole systems.

What are these, workstation. Rack mounted systems.

Are they supercomputers? I think they by any reasonable definiition they qualify. (Note by the way that I manage a group that runs Nvidia-based AI systems.)

From your description, it certainly does not. What really makes a supercomputer is the interconnect. Otherwise parallel performance is trash.

A few years ago people built GPUs using Nvidia chips. For high-end systems, that's no longer the case. You now have to get a whole assembly from Nvidia, and in the newest systems that includes the CPUs.

I've used supercomputers from IBM and Cray that used Nvidia chips. Logged into one right now.

 

[hedrick]

What are these, workstation. Rack mounted systems.

From your description, it certainly does not. What really makes a supercomputer is the interconnect. Otherwise parallel performance is trash.

I've used supercomputers from IBM and Cray that used Nvidia chips. Logged into one right now.

In the past Nvidia didn't do workstations. They made GPUs for those. The things they made were the rack-mount units with high-end GPUs and special cooling requirements that typical PCI chasses couldn't handle.

The next generation they're doing racks. GPUs are integrated with the CPU, because communications between CPU and GPU became a bottleneck. The systems in the rack communicate with 800 Gbps Ethernet, in very dense networks, sometimes with one connection per GPU. That's part of the rack system. Note that they build the Ethernet controllers and switches. I haven't looked at what a system with more than one rack looks like, but I'm sure they supply the networking for that, and that it will be mind-boggling.

They are going to start building workstations. They see them as development platforms, for developing code for the larger sysstems. So there will be something that looks like a Mac Mini, but has the same GPU and CPU integration so that it's as compatible as possible. We also expect single rack-mounted units, which will also have a similar design. The Mac Mini has 400 Gbps Ethernet on it, and is intended to be used in pairs, to give some of the flavvor of a larger system.

 

[Hans Blaster]

In the past Nvidia didn't do workstations. They made GPUs for those. The things they made were the rack-mount units with high-end GPUs and special cooling requirements that typical PCI chasses couldn't handle.

The next generation they're doing racks. GPUs are integrated with the CPU, because communications between CPU and GPU became a bottleneck. The systems in the rack communicate with 800 Gbps Ethernet, in very dense networks, sometimes with one connection per GPU. That's part of the rack system. Note that they build the Ethernet controllers and switches. I haven't looked at what a system with more than one rack looks like, but I'm sure they supply the networking for that, and that it will be mind-boggling.

Those are good speeds on the interconnect. If they can be sustained throughout...

Now take a few dozen of those racks and sustain the node-to-node bandwidth at low latency to run a single computatoin and we're in the right territory.

They are going to start building workstations. They see them as development platforms, for developing code for the larger sysstems. So there will be something that looks like a Mac Mini, but has the same GPU and CPU integration so that it's as compatible as possible. We also expect single rack-mounted units, which will also have a similar design. The Mac Mini has 400 Gbps Ethernet on it, and is intended to be used in pairs, to give some of the flavvor of a larger system.

 

[eclipsenow]

Every personal computer I have owned for the last 35+ years was made by Apple (except for that Mac clone I ran linux on in grad school).

My wife was born to be a graphic designer - so she's the same. Your Macs about work or preference? Are apple doing anything about these tariffs?

(I'm a "Career Carnie" - moving from Army Survey Corps to Child Protection Officer to junior admin. It's been great for stories - terrible for stability and prevented any promotion. There were family health things involved so it's not all me. So I've played with Mac, Windows and even Linux - but never gone super deep in any.))

 

[Hans Blaster]

My wife was born to be a graphic designer - so she's the same. Your Macs about work or preference? Are apple doing anything about these tariffs?

(I'm a "Career Carnie" - moving from Army Survey Corps to Child Protection Officer to junior admin. It's been great for stories - terrible for stability and prevented any promotion. There were family health things involved so it's not all me. So I've played with Mac, Windows and even Linux - but never gone super deep in any.))

Mostly personal preference. I was 16 before I ever touched a "PC" (as described above). The current OS is UNIX-based at the base so it plays nice when logging in to remote supercomputers.

 

[eclipsenow]

Mostly personal preference. I was 16 before I ever touched a "PC" (as described above). The current OS is UNIX-based at the base so it plays nice when logging in to remote supercomputers.

Sorry I missed something above - what do you do? Logging into supercomputing?

Unlikely hypothetical, but if Apple died, would you go Windows or Linux? There are Linux versions that try to mimic Mac in vibe - but personally I've played with Linux Mint which is a bit Mac, but a whole lot more Windows 7 - and it's quite user friendly.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Sorry I missed something above - what do you do? Logging into supercomputing?

I use supercomputers to compute things. The MacOS has a built in terminal application that works well with remote ssh connections.

Unlikely hypothetical, but if Apple died, would you go Windows or Linux? There are Linux versions that try to mimic Mac in vibe - but personally I've played with Linux Mint which is a bit Mac, but a whole lot more Windows 7 - and it's quite user friendly.

It isn't worth discussing.

 

[adrianmonk]

I've never used windows, so I don't know which ones are which at least since they stopped naming them after years. I can guess when "Windows 95" was current.

I have Windows, macOS and Linux triple booted. I prefer the Mac shortcuts rather than Ctrl or Alt modifiers.