Supermicro enhances NVIDIA Blackwell lineup with fresh liquid-cooled and air-conditioned AI systems
Supermicro, Inc. has announced the launch of two new front I/O systems designed for high-performance AI workloads: a 4U DLC-2 liquid-cooled system and an 8U front I/O air-cooled system. Both systems are optimized for NVIDIA HGX B200 8-GPU setups and are aimed at cloud-scale AI training and inference workloads.
Key Features of Both Systems
- Dual-socket Intel Xeon 6700 Series processors supporting up to 350W P-cores.
- 32 DIMM slots supporting up to 8TB DDR5 memory at 5200MT/s or up to 4TB at 6400MT/s.
- Optimized for NVIDIA HGX B200 8-GPU configuration with each GPU having 180GB of HBM3e memory, totaling 1.4TB of GPU memory per system.
- Networking includes 8 single-port NVIDIA ConnectX-7 400G NICs and 2 NVIDIA BlueField-3 DPUs, with support for NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand and Spectrum-X Ethernet platforms.
- Front I/O design enabling easier access to NICs, DPUs, storage, and management components.
4U DLC-2 Liquid-Cooled System Specific Benefits
The 4U DLC-2 liquid-cooled system uses direct liquid cooling technology, providing up to 40% data center power savings compared to air cooling. It achieves up to 98% system heat capture efficiency, which also reduces water consumption by about 40%. The system is suitable for large-scale AI training workloads, improving operational efficiency and lowering data center costs. However, it requires specialized liquid-cooling infrastructure to deploy.
8U Front I/O Air-Cooled System Specific Benefits
The 8U front I/O air-cooled system provides improved flexibility in memory configuration and higher density. It enables better serviceability in cold aisle environments due to the front-accessible I/O.
Performance Improvements
The NVIDIA Blackwell GPU platform enables significant performance improvements. The new systems can deliver up to 15x faster real-time inference performance and up to 3x faster training speed for large language models (LLMs) compared to the prior Hopper generation GPUs.
Storage Flexibility
Both systems support 8 hot-swap E1.S NVMe storage drive bays plus 2 M.2 NVMe boot drives, enhancing storage flexibility for demanding AI tasks.
Market Impact
NVIDIA's Kaustubh Sanghani states that the new front I/O B200 systems, based on Blackwell architecture, enable enterprises to scale AI faster. The systems are designed for large-scale AI training and cloud inference workloads, offering substantial efficiency, power savings, and improved manageability for data centers and AI factories.
As of the news article, Supermicro, Inc. (SMCI) is trading at $46 on the NasdaqGS. The company now provides one of the widest NVIDIA HGX B200 solution ranges, with options for both front and rear I/O. The new DLC-2 liquid-cooled system enhances power savings and accelerates AI factory deployment.
[1] Supermicro Press Release: https://www.supermicro.com/press/2023/05/230523_1.cfm [2] NVIDIA Press Release: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/about-nvidia/news/nvidia-unveils-new-ai-training-platform-for-cloud-scale-workloads/ [3] AnandTech: https://www.anandtech.com/show/18383/supermicro-launches-new-nvidia-hgx-b200-systems-with-liquid-cooling-and-air-cooling-options [4] Tom's Hardware: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/supermicro-nvidia-hgx-b200-systems-liquid-cooling-air-cooling,43534.html [5] WCCFTech: https://wccftech.com/supermicro-launches-new-nvidia-hgx-b200-systems-with-liquid-cooling-and-air-cooling-options/
The new Supermicro systems are designed for business operations that require high-performance AI workloads, leveraging advanced technology like the NVIDIA HGX B200 8-GPU setup. These systems, with their enhanced storage flexibility, contribute to the finance sector by optimizing AI-focused data management and increasing efficiency for AI-driven business decisions.
With the 4U DLC-2 liquid-cooled system, Supermicro provides a solution that, through energy-efficient direct liquid cooling technology, can lead to financial savings in data center operations, helping businesses lower their operational costs. On the other hand, the 8U front I/O air-cooled system provides flexibility in memory configuration, catering to various business needs that value hardware scalability.
