INFRA
INFRA
INFRA
Pure Storage introduces AIRI, a beefy machine for AI workloads
Pure Storage Inc. today unveiled AIRI, a new hardware platform built in collaboration with graphics chipmaker Nvidia Corp. that targets enterprises pursuing large-scale artificial intelligence initiatives.
Introduced at Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California, the system is a “fully integrated” solution that cuts the complexity of creating an AI environment, the companies said. It’s based on Pure’s analytics-optimized FlashBlade storage system and DGX-1, a specialized server from Nvidia built for deep learning that uses its graphics processing unit chips.
AIRI incorporates the version of DGX-1 that’s based on the chipmaker’s Tesla V100 graphics card, which retails at $8,699 and has the specifications to match. It packs 21.1 billion transistors that form more than 5,700 individual processing cores, including 640 so-called Tensor Cores. These are specialized circuits optimized for handling the kinds of calculations that machine learning algorithms perform as they process data.
A single DGX-1 server packs eight Tesla V100s and the AIRI incorporates five such machines, giving it 5 petaflops of processing power. A petaflop is equivalent to a quadrillion floating-point operations per second, a standard unit of computer performance.
The DGX-1 servers in AIRI connect to Pure’s FlashArray storage gear using speedy 100-gigabit Ethernet switches from Arista Networks Inc. On the software side, the platform includes a number of tools designed to help companies quickly get started with their projects.
The lineup has two main components. The first is a bundle called the AIRI Scaling Toolkit provided by Pure, while the other is the Nvidia GPU Cloud, a collection of popular AI development frameworks that the chipmaker has packaged into GPU-optimized software containers. They make it possible to set up an environment quickly where a company’s developers can build and train neural networks.
With this much power, AIRI is aimed squarely at large enterprises. One early adopter is Zenuity AB, a joint venture between Volvo Cars Corp. and automotive safety system supplier Autoliv Inc. that develops autonomous driving software.
Photo: Robert Hof/SiliconANGLE
Since you’re here …
… We’d like to tell you about our mission and how you can help us fulfill it. SiliconANGLE Media Inc.’s business model is based on the intrinsic value of the content, not advertising. Unlike many online publications, we don’t have a paywall or run banner advertising, because we want to keep our journalism open, without influence or the need to chase traffic.The journalism, reporting and commentary on SiliconANGLE — along with live, unscripted video from our Silicon Valley studio and globe-trotting video teams at theCUBE — take a lot of hard work, time and money. Keeping the quality high requires the support of sponsors who are aligned with our vision of ad-free journalism content.
If you like the reporting, video interviews and other ad-free content here, please take a moment to check out a sample of the video content supported by our sponsors, tweet your support, and keep coming back to SiliconANGLE.
