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Here is today’s rundown:

• FEATURED: Nvidia releases its latest supercomputer, plus Sidewalk wants to ditch diesel for AI battery allocation

• BIG DEALS/DEVELOPMENTS: Biden is giving Intel $8.5B, Oracle predicts HUGE 2024, and Indiana is a new hub!

• COOLING, TECH, AND POWER: The coolest companies in DC, Will your next solar installation be mobile? BEEP BEEP, autonomous shuttles are en route

Est. read time: 6mins 18secs

- Featured -

Nvidia announces its latest supercomputer

The semiconductor juggernaut has unveiled its next-generation AI supercomputer, the Nvidia DGX SuperPOD, aimed at handling the most advanced generative AI training and inference workloads with unparalleled efficiency.

The supercomputer is designed for processing trillion-parameter models with constant uptime, hoping to set a new milestone in AI computing capabilities.

Before we get into the specs, check out Brian Beeler’s video of the new machine below.

Here are some of SuperPOD’s features:

Crazy Computing Power: Delivers 11.5 exaflops of AI supercomputing at FP4 precision and includes 240 terabytes of fast memory, with scalability for even greater capacity.

Superchips Everywhere: Features 36 Nvidia GB200 Superchips per system, combining 36 Nvidia Grace CPUs with 72 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs for up to a 30x performance boost over previous generations.

Unified Compute Fabric: Incorporates fifth-generation Nvidia NVLink, Nvidia BlueField-3 DPUs, and Nvidia Quantum-X800 InfiniBand networking for superior bandwidth and connectivity.

Highly Efficient, Liquid-Cooled Architecture: A new rack-scale architecture that ensures efficient cooling and performance across the board.

Enhanced In-Network Computing: Employs fourth-generation Nvidia SHARP technology to deliver a 4x increase in in-network computing power, enhancing data processing and analysis.

Flexible and Efficient Deployment: The DGX SuperPOD is pre-built, cabled, and tested for quick and efficient deployment in customer data centers, minimizing setup time and complexity.

DGX B200 Systems for Diverse AI Applications: Introduces the NVIDIA DGX B200 system, a versatile AI supercomputing platform suitable for a wide range of industries and AI tasks, from model training to inference.

Nvidia DGX SuperPOD with DGX GB200 and DGX B200 systems are expected to be available later this year from Nvidia’s global partners.

- Featured -

SIP plans to change how we think about data center power

Sidewalk Infrastructure Partners (SIP), a spunoff Google brainchild, has unveiled Verrus, which uses batteries and AI to allocate and back up data center power.

Microgrids and Flexibility

At the heart of Verrus lies an innovative use of "microgrids," combining advanced, high-capacity batteries with smart software to allocate power for specific tasks, thereby addressing the fluctuations in energy demand spurred by cloud computing and AI-intensive projects.

The goal is to use battery storage to smooth out the peaks of energy consumption and to bring about a more efficient way to manage and allocate power across different computing tasks, especially during off-peak hours.

The project's pilot will launch three data centers in Arizona, California, and Massachusetts, equipped with Verrus technology, targeting operational status by 2026 or 2027.

Building a gigawatt-scale data center requires about $1 billion, but with Alphabet's support, funding prospects look promising.

This initiative addresses the increasing strain that cloud computing and AI exert on power grids, highlighting the need for more than just additional data centers to satisfy rising energy demands.

“The challenge with adding data centers to the grid is not the 340 days a year that the grid isn’t maxed out. The grid is very happy to supply power on the days when it’s not at capacity,” he said. “The real challenge is the 20 days a year where for few hours a day they can’t serve the load.”

Instead, Verrus proposes a shift towards more adaptable energy distribution, allowing for strategic power deployment within data centers, thereby optimizing energy use for AI training batches or essential cloud services.

This battery-powered dynamic energy approach not only aims to mitigate the strain on electrical grids during peak demand but also underscores the growing challenge of meeting the power needs of our digital infrastructure.

SIP says they don’t have any customers on board yet, but the company seems optimistic on that point.

Get smarter about protecting your S3 data

With rising costs for Amazon S3 storage and potentially devastating business consequences from data loss, you need a holistic approach to cutting unnecessary spending and guarding against risks. Lawrence Miller, a consultant to multinational corporations who holds numerous networking certifications, has authored a concise volume that lays out the path to success in managing backup and compliance for S3 data lakes.

- Cooling, Tech and More -

1. DC’s Coolest Companies: Data Centre Magazine recently put together its list of the most innovative, interesting data center cooling companies. It’s kind of an ad for Vertiv, but it’s also just a great list of some of the liquid cooling companies making waves right now.
Check out the full list here.

2. *BEEP BEEP Human*: Autonymous shuttle company BEEP has launched its first full scale deployment at a Florida University. The shuttles use self-driving software from Oxa and feature lidar, radar, and high-fidelity cameras for 360-degree always-on sensing capabilities.
Read IOTWorld’s full write up on the launch.

3. Unfold Your Solar Farm!: Check out this video of the Solar Container mobile solar panel project. Whether it’s these guys or another innovator, is this what the future of solar deployment looks like?

- Deals and Developments -

Intel to Receive $8.5B for its Fantastical new Foundry

President Biden awarded Intel $8.5 billion in grants to expand semiconductor production in the U.S., marking the largest award from the CHIPS Act funds.

The grants aim to boost semiconductor manufacturing at Intel facilities across Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico, and Oregon, potentially generating thousands of new jobs.

Intel may receive up to $11 billion in loans and benefit from federal tax credits for its expansion, which is expected to exceed $100 billion over five years.
The initiative will create over 10,000 manufacturing jobs and approximately 20,000 construction jobs.

The goal of the CHIPS Act is to produce 20% of the world's leading-edge chips domestically by the end of the decade. The grants will also fund the transformation of facilities into advanced semiconductor manufacturing and packaging sites, enhancing Intel's innovation capabilities.

Oracle Predicts Big Data Center Future: $10B this year alone

“This quarter marks the first time our total cloud revenue is more than our total license support revenue,” Catz said during an earnings call. “We have crossed over.”

Oracle CEO Safra Catz proceeded these remarks with the announcement that the Austin-based company plans to spend $10 billion to build its data center capacity next year.
All to service burgeoning demand driven by the explosive growth of GenAI.

Oracle reported $5.1B in cloud revenue, a 24% year-over-year increase, including a 49% jump in infrastructure cloud services revenue. Oracle’s license support revenue was $4.9B.

More Big Deals

• Meta is building an $800M data center in Minnesota. Opening in 2026, the 715,000 sqft Rosemount facility will be based on the company’s new AI data center designs. It will be built on the site of a WW2 gunpowder facility.

• Is Indiana becoming the latest data center hub? Meta, Google and Amazon all have near-billion-dollar facilities planned or in the works. The state’s generous tax incentives make it one of the Midwest’s premier options for data center development.

• Chipmaker Groq looks to raise another round. This is towards its ambitious goal of shipping 1.5 million LPU chips by the end of 2025. (So far the company has shipped 4500 chips, and raised more than $300M…)

That’s it. Thanks for reading.

Let me know what you think by replying to this email. Also, sharing it with someone who loves data centers helps too.

- Taylor