What you need to know about Equinix and Nvidia's latest AI partnership
On Wednesday, Equinix and Nvidia said they’ve teamed up to bring Nvidia supercomputing to businesses.
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The backstory: Founded in 1998 in Silicon Valley, Equinix has become a global leader in connecting digital ecosystems. The company strategically spreads data centers around the world to keep up with the rising need for reliable digital infrastructure.
Nvidia has been a key player in graphics processing units (GPUs) since 1993. With the booming demand for deep-learning artificial intelligence (AI) models, Nvidia's GPUs are now prized in the tech community, briefly pushing its market value past US$1 trillion last year. It's worth noting that its GPUs are the powerhouse behind advanced AI like ChatGPT, contributing to a shortage as other tech giants rush to integrate similar AI technology.
Last year, Nvidia's CEO Jensen Huang led major AI initiatives, covering everything from advanced robotics to enhanced gaming experiences. In a standout move last October, Nvidia partnered with Foxconn to create "AI factories" focused on developing intelligence for self-driving cars and large-scale language models (LLMs).
More recently: Last November, Nvidia and Amazon Web Services (AWS) teamed up to boost AI chip technology. AWS rolled out faster Nvidia H200 AI GPUs, Trainium2 chips and Graviton4 processors, all with a strong 30% boost in performance compared to its predecessors. AWS is set to operate 16,000 Nvidia GH200 Grace Hopper Superchips. Currently, H200 VM instances are prepping for release, and Graviton4 instances are in testing, aiming for a full launch soon.
The development: On Wednesday, Equinix and Nvidia said they’ve teamed up to bring Nvidia supercomputing to businesses. Now, companies can own their own AI systems instead of renting them from big players like Amazon or Microsoft. It's a game-changer because it will let companies have better control over their data.
The idea is that Nvidia has trained Equinix staff on how to build and manage its systems. So now, when companies buy Nvidia systems, they’ll turn to Equinix to manage them while still holding on to ownership. The big goal? Boosting privacy for large businesses keen on controlling their digital strategies. As of now, the joint Nvidia and Equinix service is up and running. But specific businesses taking advantage of this collaboration weren’t named.
Key comments:
"Our goal here is not to automate the process or replace people, but to take the people we have and just give them superpowers to make them more productive," said Nvidia chief scientist Bill Dally to Reuters.
"We view Nvidia as the most important company on the planet in an era that is rapidly changing towards one that will be emphasized by greater AI capabilities," said CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino.
"With all the enthusiasm around AI and the fact Nvidia delivered a huge beat for first-quarter results and second-quarter estimates, this gives some actual evidence AI is for real," said Daniel Morgan, senior portfolio manager at Synovus Trust in Atlanta, Georgia, in the US.
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