At the recently held Lenovo Tech World 2024 event, the company showcased its expertise in the concept of ‘Hybrid AI,’ encompassing products and launches focused on personal AI, enterprise AI, and public AI. While Lenovo PC’s and AI buddies were talked of highly, Lenovo’s continued push in the infrastructure domain was undoubtedly the highlight.
Scott Tease, VP and GM of AI and High-Performance Computing (HPC) at Lenovo, explained what sets Lenovo’s HPC solutions apart from competitors like Dell. “We’re building exascale systems designed to be accessible to any customer, regardless of their data centre setup or size,” he said while interacting with AIM at the sidelines of Tech World in Seattle.
Data Centre for All-Scale Business
Unlike competitors whose HPC solutions often require specialised facilities, Lenovo’s systems are engineered to fit into standard data centre racks and operate with standard power requirements. Tease emphasised that Lenovo’s HPC technology is designed for flexibility, with options for both air and water cooling and open interconnects, making it ideal for regular data centres.
“Our competitors might offer the same building blocks, but they’re often custom-designed for very large systems,” he explained when asked about HPC solutions offered by competitors such as Dell and HPE.
Lenovo’s approach prioritises accessibility without the need for costly infrastructure changes like reinforced floors or oversized entryways. Tease explains that, with Lenovo’s technology, there’s no need to rebuild data centres or reinforce floors, as the equipment can fit through a standard 2-metre door or freight elevator. In contrast, competing solutions involve 4,000-kilogram racks that are 2.5 metres wide, exceeding typical floor support capabilities.
“We’re designing exascale for every scale,” he added, underscoring Lenovo’s mission to democratise high-end HPC technology.
Sustainable Power to Run the Show
While offering HPC as a major service, Lenovo is also managing to hit sustainability goals. Tease emphasised the importance of reducing power consumption to achieve both Lenovo’s and its clients’ ESG targets. “80% of a device’s carbon impact comes from power usage,” he said, underscoring Lenovo’s focus on lowering energy use to reduce overall emissions.
Lenovo’s sixth-generation Neptune cooling system ThinkSystem N1380 Neptune, unveiled at Tech World, is a water-cooling system built to support NVIDIA’s Blackwell platform and AI applications. The system is said to operate at 100 kW+ server racks, thereby achieving 100% heat removal.
“If one of these large language model nodes costs you 10 kilowatts to run the compute itself, you’re going to spend another 4 kilowatts just for air conditioning. With Neptune, we can do away with all that air movement. We can do away with all the air conditioning and the air movement in the data centre,” said Tease. It could easily save 30-40% of the power bill.
Tease explained that twelve years ago, Lenovo’s first server node consumed 330 watts of power. Today, the new Grace Blackwell super node uses around 14 times more power but offers nearly 1,000 times the performance of those early systems. This focus on increasing performance per watt has become essential for customer support.
Lenovo’s Neptune liquid cooling system aims to help clients rethink data centre design by addressing not only the power needed to operate AI but also the substantial energy required for cooling.
Cooling systems have become the need of the hour, with a number of big tech companies partnering with data cooling system providers. For instance, NVIDIA is not just partnering with Lenovo but also Super Micro Computer, for liquid cooling. The company also announced its partnership with Elon Musk’s xAI to power Colossus, the world’s largest AI supercomputer.
HPC in India
“For HPC, you have some very big clusters going on in India, a lot of research, a lot of great universities, and we want to be a part of every one of those we possibly can,” Tease said.
Tease stated that the deployment of IT technologies in India is tailored to meet specific regional requirements. “India is like a hotbed of AI startups,” he said. He also committed to identifying and supporting the most talented Indian startups, not only within India but also on a broader scale.
Lenovo’s Indian ambitions have been steadily growing to fuel the hyperscaler ambition for India. The company also announced its full-stack portfolio, which is completely ‘Made in India’.
Last month, Lenovo inaugurated its state-of-the-art research and development lab in Bengaluru, making it the fourth city to host an infrastructure R&D lab globally.
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