Today NVIDIA announced a new program for OEMs to help them on their AI/ML journey, the NVIDIA-Certified Systems program. This program will help to speed AI and data analytics for systems that leverage NVIDIA GPUs (which at this point is most of the major players) and Mellanox networks. The initial rollout will cover companies such as Dell Technologies, GIGABYTE, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Inspur, and Supermicro, a bit odd as at least two major names seem to be missing.
Today NVIDIA announced a new program for OEMs to help them on their AI/ML journey, the NVIDIA-Certified Systems program. This program will help to speed AI and data analytics for systems that leverage NVIDIA GPUs (which at this point is most of the major players) and Mellanox networks. The initial rollout will cover companies such as Dell Technologies, GIGABYTE, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Inspur, and Supermicro, a bit odd as at least two major names seem to be missing.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be the next big disrupter. It has been slowly gaining traction over the last few years. While it is still in its infancy, AI can already make major changes to businesses across the board. AI can be used for predictions, real-time fraud detection, and improve automation such as self-driving cars that will probably be the next wave of transportation. Another area where AI can really make a difference is Big Data Analytics where AI can work faster to sift through the mountains of data that are being generated every day. On top of this, there is no telling the type of benefits healthcare can see with AI.
According to Gartner, 37% of all enterprises are currently leveraging AI in some form and they expect to see that jump to 75% in three years. The new technology sounds great, but companies may need some sort of road map on how to best leverage it. If one were to adopt new technology, it is also good to know that it has been “road tested” so to speak before plunking it down in a data center. Enter the NVIDIA-Certified Systems program.
According to the company, NVIDIA-Certified Systems deliver the performance, programmability, and secure throughput enterprise AI needs. The systems are a combination of NVIDIA Ampere architecture for GPUs and NVIDIA Mellanox networking (either an NVIDIA Mellanox 8700 HDR 200G InfiniBand switch or the Mellanox SN3700 Ethernet switch). NVIDIA runs a broad range of tests to certify the systems and also optimizes them for running AI applications from the NGC catalog. The tests that must pass for certification must include Deep learning training and inference, Machine learning algorithms, Intelligent video analytics, and network and storage offload.
As of this writing, 14 servers from six systems makers are certified (with nearly 70 systems from at least 11 system makers engaged in the program). These servers are said to have as many as eight A100 GPUs and high-speed InfiniBand or Ethernet network adapters.
The first systems off of the line using NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs include:
- Dell EMC PowerEdge R7525 and R740 rack servers
- GIGABYTE R281-G30, R282-Z96, G242-Z11, G482-Z54, G492- Z51 systems
- HPE Apollo 6500 Gen10 System and HPE ProLiant DL380 Gen10 Server
- Inspur NF5488A5
- Supermicro A+ Server AS -4124GS-TNR and AS -2124GQ-NART
Availability and Pricing
The program is up and running today with the above servers ready to go. NVIDIA indicated pricing will have tiers and while not included in the press release, suggested a server with 4 GPUs would cost about $10,000 for a three-year contract. Of course, the contract cost scales with the number of GPUs in the box.
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