IBM Taps Nvidia GPUs to Bring More Power to the Data Center

Quantum computing seems to be taking up all the headlines these days – Google’s (News - Alert) new quantum computing lab at NASA, for example — and it certainly does have its uses, at least in the technology world of tomorrow. However, when it comes to the computing needs of today, particularly in terms of the data center, it seems IBM (News - Alert) is reaching for a more familiar technology: the graphical processing unit, or GPU.

Obviously designed for the processing of graphics, modern GPUs from the like of Nvidia and AMD (News - Alert) are much more powerful than most central processing units (CPUs). As such, IBM has begun collaborating with Nvidia on GPU-accelerated versions of IBM’s portfolio of enterprise software applications on IBM Power Systems.

Harnessing GPUs for purposes other than graphics processing isn’t a new concept, but this marks the first time that GPU accelerator technology has been applied to enterprise-scale data centers. The aim is to enable IBM’s customers to more rapidly process, secure and analyze large volumes of streaming data.

"Companies are looking for new and more efficient ways to drive business value from Big Data and analytics," said Tom Rosamilia, senior vice president of the IBM Systems & Technology Group and Integrated Supply Chain. "The combination of IBM and NVIDIA (News - Alert) processor technologies can provide clients with an advanced and efficient foundation to achieve this goal."

Put simply, companies will be able to leverage the joint processing capabilities of Nvidia’s Tesla GPUs in tandem with IBM Power processors. This will provide a level of processing comparable to supercomputing hardware that is used primarily for scientific and technical research – computing tasks such as space exploration and decoding the human genome.

"This partnership will bring supercomputer performance to the corporate data center, expanding the use of GPU accelerators well beyond the traditional supercomputing and technical computing markets," said Ian Buck, vice president of Accelerated Computing at NVIDIA. "It will also provide existing supercomputing and high performance computing customers with new choices and technologies to build powerful, energy-efficient systems that drive innovation and scientific discovery."

Edited by Blaise McNamee