NVIDIA & Equinix Partnership: Transforming AI Supercomputing
Leading data centre company Equinix has announced a ground-breaking expansion to its partnership with NVIDIA to offer the company’s supercomputing systems to its clients.
Equinix has announced a fully managed private cloud service that aims to enable businesses to easily acquire and manage their own NVIDIA DGX AI supercomputing infrastructure for building and running custom generative AI (Gen AI) models.
Both companies state that this new offering will enable companies to own AI computing systems and have better control over their data, rather than renting NVIDIA chips from competitors like Amazon or Microsoft.
Developing greater enterprise innovation
Equinix has recently undergone significant business transformation over the past year, having expanded its data centre services worldwide. During a time of unprecedented demand for new technologies like generative AI (Gen AI), the company has recognised the significance of utilising AI technology in a responsible way and ensuring that it delivers positive outcomes for users.
The company has also found that increasing numbers of business customers are embracing hyperscale data centres to facilitate their desire to expand their AI, in addition to wanting greater control over their data, as company President and CEO Charles Meyers explains below.
Speaking on the expanded partnership with NVIDIA, Meyers says: “To harness the incredible potential of Gen AI, enterprises need adaptable, scalable hybrid infrastructure in their local markets to bring AI supercomputing to their data.
“Our new service provides customers a fast and cost-effective way to adopt advanced AI infrastructure that's operated and managed by experts globally.”
With NVIDIA viewing AI as a reinvention of computing, it has trained Equinix staff how to build and run its systems. Corporate customers will purchase NVIDIA systems, but pay Equinix to build and run them efficiently whilst still retaining ownership. They will also be able to scale their infrastructure to achieve the level of AI performance that they need.
Meeting computing demand during an age of AI
The partnership also allows for easy access to privately managed NVIDIA AI supercomputing. Equinix’s fully managed service will enable customers to operate their AI infrastructure in close proximity to their data.
Equinix has been keen to develop a broad range of solutions and build upon its existing capabilities to cater to increased Gen AI demand. With AI being leveraged for data centre solutions like cooling systems, the company has been vocal about wanting to cut energy usage by optimising energy supply needed.
The service with NVIDIA offers high-speed private network access to global network service providers, enabling quick Gen AI information retrieval across corporate wide area networks. In addition, it provides private, high-bandwidth interconnections to cloud services and enterprise service providers to facilitate AI workloads while meeting data security and compliance requirements.
Using the service, customers can easily access their NVIDIA AI Enterprise software to streamline the development and deployment of production-grade AI applications, including Gen AI. This is particularly relevant as, given data centre electricity demand being pushed to its limits, industry leaders will need to consider how to keep pace with continued rising demand for AI in an economically viable way.
“Gen AI is transforming every industry,” says Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Now, enterprises can own NVIDIA AI supercomputing and software, paired with the operational efficiency of Equinix management, in hundreds of data centres worldwide.”
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