IBM has announced its new Power Systems Servers which have been designed especially for artificial intelligence processing in data centres. The new servers are powered by the IBM POWER9 processor which has been designed to handle intensive AI workloads. The new systems are capable of improving the training times of deep learning frameworks by almost four times allowing for quicker and more accurate build of AI applications.
Bob Picciano, SVP of IBM Cognitive Systems, said:
“We’ve built a game-changing powerhouse for AI and cognitive workloads. In addition to arming the world’s most powerful supercomputers, IBM POWER9 Systems is designed to enable enterprises around the world to scale unprecedented insights, driving scientific discovery enabling transformational business outcomes across every industry.”
The headline statistics that IBM is promoting with the new POWER9 processor versus x86 are:
- 9.5x max I/O bandwidth
- 2x high-performance cores
- 2.6x more RAM supported
- 1.8x more memory bandwidth
One company which will benefit from the new hardware is Google. Bart Sano, VP of Google Platforms, said:
“Google is excited about IBM’s progress in the development of the latest POWER technology. The POWER9 OpenCAPI Bus and large memory capabilities allow for further opportunities for innovation in Google data centres.”
In the coming years as more and more people expect their devices to be intelligent the need for such hardware will surely increase, IBM"s latest hardware will be an important part of the infrastructure needed to provide for consumer expectations.
Source: IBM (1, 2) via VentureBeat