Nvidia Teams Up With Colocation Providers On AI

Nvidia teamed up with North American data center operators for a new program that gives companies access to its deep-learning DGX systems through a network of colocation partners.

The initial partners include Aligned Energy, Colovore, Core Scientific, CyrusOne, Digital Reality, EdgeConneX, Flexential, Scale Matrix, and Switch.

“And since we’ve announced it, we have more and more colo providers approaching us,” said Tony Paikeday, director of product marketing for the Nvidia DGX portfolio. The chipmaker is in talks with several other data center operators in the U.S. and abroad, and “the goal is to expand it globally,” he added. “We do expect the list will continue to grow over time.”

Nvidia’s DGX systems are purpose-built for artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and deep learning. They are built on the vendor’s Volta GPU platform and include integrated deep-learning and management software. Nvidia also partners with leading storage and networking vendors on these systems and offers DGX reference architectures in combination with DDN, IBM Storage, NetApp, Pure Storage, Cisco, Arista, and Mellanox.

“We’ve instilled confidence in enterprise IT by partnering up with the biggest data center names out there to offer complete turnkey solutions for AI infrastructure with Nvidia compute plus the best names in storage and networking,” Paikeday said.

But some businesses don’t have the right infrastructure or facilities optimized for dense computing configurations. That’s where the new colocation program comes into play.

“This program really takes that challenge off of the plate of IT leaders and connects the enterprise with a proven provider of colocation services,” Paikeday said. “Customers can avoid getting mired in the challenges of facilities planning, and they can focus on insights and driving valuable outcomes from their data versus trying to figure out how to rearchitect their data center.”

Disappointing Q4 Revenue

The colocation program comes on the heels of a particularly disappointing quarter that CEO Jensen Huang described as “unusually turbulent and disappointing” in a shareholder letter. Nvidia will report its fourth quarter fiscal 2019 earnings next week and said its Q4 revenue will be $2.2 billion, well below its earlier guidance of $2.7 billion.

Data center revenue came up short, and a number of these deals did not close, Huang said in the letter. But, he added that Nvidia expects new data center GPU applications and partnerships will drive growth this year.―SDx Central