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Healthcare in the spotlight: Big challenges, big tech

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Healthcare in the spotlight: Big challenges, big tech

To meet some of their industry’s toughest challenges, healthcare providers are turning to advanced technology.

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Healthcare providers face some tough challenges. Advanced technology can help.

As a recent report from consultants McKinsey & Co. points out, healthcare providers are dealing with some big challenges. These include rising costs, workforce shortages, an aging population, and increased competition from nontraditional parties.

Another challenge: Consumers expect their healthcare providers to offer new capabilities, such as digital scheduling and telemedicine, as well as better experiences.

One way healthcare providers hope to meet these two challenge streams is with advanced technology. Three-quarters of U.S. healthcare providers increased their IT spending in the last year, according to a survey conducted by consultants Bain & Co. The same survey found that 15% of healthcare providers already have an AI strategy in place, up from just 5% who had a strategy in 2023.

Generative AI is showing potential, too. Another survey, this one done by McKinsey, finds that over 70% of healthcare organizations are now either pursuing GenAI proofs-of-concept or are already implementing GenAI solutions.

Dynamic Duo

There’s a catch to all this: As healthcare providers adopt AI, they’re finding that the required datasets and advanced analytics don’t run well on their legacy IT systems.

To help, Supermicro and AMD are working together. They’re offering healthcare providers heavy-duty compute delivered at rack scale.

Supermicro servers powered by AMD Instinct MI300X GPUs are designed to accelerate AI and HPC workloads in healthcare. They offer the levels of performance, density and efficiency healthcare providers need to improve patient outcomes.

The AMD Instinct MI300X is designed to deliver high performance for GenAI workloads and HPC applications. It’s designed with no fewer than 304 high-throughput compute units. You also get AI-specific functions and 192GB of HBM3 memory, all of it based on AMD’s CDNA 3 architecture.

Healthcare providers can use Supermicro servers powered by AMD GPUs for next-generation research and treatments. These could include advanced drug discovery, enhanced diagnostics and imaging, risk assessments and personal care, and increased patient support with self-service tools and real-time edge analytics.

Supermicro points out that its servers powered by AMD Instinct GPUs deliver massive compute with rack-scale flexibility, as well as high levels of power efficiency.

Performance:

  • The powerful combination of CPUs, GPUs and HBM3 memory accelerates HPC and AI workloads.
  • HBM3 memory offers capacities of up to 192GB dedicated to the GPUs.
  • Complete solutions ship pre-validated, ready for instant deployment.
  • Double-precision power can serve up to 163.4 TFLOPS.

Flexibility:

  • Proven AI building-block architecture streamlines deployment at scale for the largest AI models.
  • An open AI ecosystem with AMD ROCm open software.
  • A unified computing platform with AMD Instinct MI300X plus AMD Infinity fabric and infrastructure.
  • Thanks to a modular design and build, users move faster to the correct configuration.

Efficiency:

  • Dual-zone cooling innovation, used by some of the most efficient supercomputers on the Green500 supercomputer list.
  • Improved density with 3rd Gen AMD CDNA, delivering 19,456 stream cores.
  • Chip-level power intelligence enables the AMD Instinct MI300X to deliver big power performance.
  • Purpose-built silicon design of the 3rd Gen AMD CDNA combines 5nm and 6nm fabrication processes.

Are your healthcare clients looking to unleash the potential of their data? Then tell them about Supermicro systems powered by the AMD MI300X GPUs.

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Research Roundup: IT & cloud infrastructure spending rise, tech jobs stay strong, 2 security threats worsen

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Research Roundup: IT & cloud infrastructure spending rise, tech jobs stay strong, 2 security threats worsen

Catch up on the latest IT industry trends and statistics from leading market watchers and analysts.

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Three of every four CFOs plan to increase their organizations’ IT spending this year. Spending on cloud infrastructure services rose 20% last year. Unemployment among IT workers is lower than the national average. And two types of cyber attacks are bigger threats than ever.

That’s some of the latest from leading IT industry watchers and researchers. And here’s your Performance Intensive Computing roundup.

CFOs: More IT Spending

If it’s true that a rising tide lifts all boats, you might prepare to set sail now. A new survey finds that a majority of corporate CFOs plan to boost their technology budgets this year.

The survey, conducted this past fall by research group Gartner, reached just over 300 CFOs and other senior finance leaders. Gartner published its findings this month, and they include:

  • Over three-quarters of CFOs surveyed (77%) plan to boost spending in the technology category this year.
  • Nearly half the CFOs (47%) plan to increase technology spending by 10% or more this year compared with last year.
  • Nearly a third (30%) plan to increase technology spending by 4% to 9% year-on-year.
  • And fewer than one in 10 CFOs (9%) plan to decrease technology spending this year.

Cloud Infrastructure: Spending Rises

One of those lifted ships: cloud infrastructure services.

In the fourth quarter of 2024, global spending on these services rose 20% year-on-year, according to new metrics from market watcher Canalys.

Global spending for the full year also rose 20%, Canalys said. Spending on cloud infrastructure services hit $321.3 billion last year, up from $267.7 billion in 2023.

The key driver of the growth? That would be AI. The technology “significantly accelerated” cloud adoption, Canalys says.

Looking ahead, Canalys expects global spending on cloud infrastructure services this year to rise by another 19%.

Tech Employment: Mostly Strong

Also on an upswing: technology employment.

New figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor show that across all sectors of the U.S. economy, tech occupations grew by about 228,000 jobs.

Within the tech industry alone, the picture was more mixed. More than 13,700 jobs were filled in IT services and software development, but in telecom, 7,900 workers lost their jobs.

Tech is still a good industry to work in. The industry’s unemployment rate in January was 2.9%, compared with a national rate of 4%.

“Tech hiring activity was solid across the key categories,” says Tim Herbert, chief research officer at CompTIA, an industry trade group. “Employers continue to balance the need for foundational tech talent and skills with the push into next-gen fields.”

Security: Phishing, DDoS Both Worsen

Two kinds of cyber threats are getting worse:

  • The number of phishing attempts blocked worldwide last year by Kaspersky rose 26% over the previous year.
  • Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) attacks increased by 82% last year, according to a new report from Zayo Group.

Kaspersky, a cybersecurity and digital privacy company, says it blocked more than 893 million phishing attempts last year, up from 710 million in 2023.

In many instances, the attackers mimicked the websites and social media feeds of well-known brands, including Airbnb, Booking and TikTok. Others falsely presented product giveaways from celebrities. In one, actress Jennifer Aniston was falsely shown promoting a giveaway of 10,000 laptop computers — a giveaway that did not exist.

Separately, Zayo Group, a provider of communications infrastructure, has published its biannual DDoS insights report, and the findings aren’t pretty. The attack volume rose from 90,000 incidents in 2023 to 165,000 incidents last year.

In a DDoS attack, the bad guys make a machine or network resource unavailable by disrupting the services of a host connected to a network. Often they do this by flooding the target system with requests, overloading the system and preventing requests that are legit from being fulfilled

In one worrisome change, the bad guys are increasing the scale of their DDoS attacks by using large botnets, compromised IoT devices and AI.

“The sophistication of DDoS attacks continues to grow,” says Max Clauson, a senior VP at Zayo. “Cybercriminals are finding ways to exploit cloud services, higher-bandwidth availability, and new vulnerabilities in software and network protocols.”

Also, Zayo finds the targets of DDoS attacks are shifting:

  • Telecom is still the most targeted sector, representing 42% of all observed incidents. But that’s down from 48% in 2023.
  • Attacks on the finance industry grew. In 2023 finance represented just 3.5% of all observed instances. In 2024 that doubled to 7%.
  • In healthcare, the total number of DDoS attacks more than tripled from 2023 to 2024, rising by a whopping 223%.

 

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AMD Instinct MI300A blends GPU, CPU for super-speedy AI/HPC

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AMD Instinct MI300A blends GPU, CPU for super-speedy AI/HPC

CPU or GPU for AI and HPC? You can get the best of both with the AMD Instinct MI300A.

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The AMD Instinct MI300A is the world’s first data center accelerated processing unit for high-performance computing and AI. It does this by integrating both CPU and GPU cores on a single package.

That makes the AMD Instinct MI300A highly efficient at running both HPC and AI workloads. It also makes the MI300A powerful enough to accelerate training the latest AI models.

Introduced about a year ago, the AMD Instinct MI300A accelerator is shipping soon. So are two Supermicro servers—one a liquid-cooled 2U system, the other an air-cooled 4U—each powered by four MI300A units.

Under the Hood

The technology of the AMD Instinct MI300A is impressive. Each MI300A integrates 24 AMD ‘Zen 4’ x86 CPU cores with 228 AMD CDNA 3 high-throughput GPU compute units.

You also get 128GB of unified HBM3 memory. This presents a single shared address space to CPU and GPU, all of which are interconnected into the coherent 4th Gen AMD Infinity architecture.

Also, the AMD Instinct MI300A is designed to be used in a multi-unit configuration. This means you can connect up to four of them in a single server.

To make this work, each APU has 1 TB/sec. of bidirectional connectivity through eight 128 GB/sec. AMD Infinity Fabric interfaces. Four of the interfaces are dedicated Infinity Fabric links. The other four can be flexibly assigned to deliver either Infinity Fabric or PCIe Gen 5 connectivity.

In a typical four-APU configuration, six interfaces are dedicated to inter-GPU Infinity Fabric connectivity. That supplies a total of 384 GB/sec. of peer-to-peer connectivity per APU. One interface is assigned to support x16 PCIe Gen 5 connectivity to external I/O devices. In addition, each MI300A includes two x4 interfaces to storage, such as M.2 boot drives, plus two USB Gen 2 or 3 interfaces.

Converged Computing

There’s more. The AMD Instinct MI300A was designed to handle today’s convergence of HPC and AI applications at scale.

To meet the increasing demands of AI applications, the APU is optimized for widely used data types. These include FP64, FP32, FP16, BF16, TF32, FP8 and INT8.

The MI300A also supports native hardware sparsity for efficiently gathering data from sparse matrices. This saves power and compute cycles, and it also lowers memory use.

Another element of the design aims at high efficiency by eliminating time-consuming data copy operations. The MI300A can easily offload tasks easily between the CPU and GPU. And it’s all supported by AMD’s ROCm 6 open software platform, built for HPC, AI and machine learning workloads.

Finally, virtualized environments are supported on the MI300A through SR-IOV to share resources with up to three partitions per APU. SR-IOV—short for single-root, input/output virtualization—is an extension of the PCIe spec. It allows a device to separate access to its resources among various PCIe functions. The goal: improved manageability and performance.

Fun fact: The AMD Instinct MI300A is a key design component of the El Capitan supercomputer recently dedicated by Lawrence Livermore Labs. This system can process over two quintillion (1018) calculations per second.

Supermicro Servers

As mentioned above, Supermicro now offers two server systems based on the AMD Instinct MI300A APU. They’re 2U and 4U systems.

These servers both take advantage of AMD’s integration features by combining four MI300A units in a single system. That gives you a total of 912 GPUs, 96 CPUs, and 512GB of HBM3 memory.

Supermicro says these systems can push HPC processing to Exascale levels, meaning they’re very, very fast. “Flop” is short for floating point operations per second, and “exa” indicates a 1 with 18 zeros after it. That’s fast.

Supermicro’s 2U server (model number AS -2145GH-TNMR-LCC) is liquid-cooled and aimed at HPC workloads. Supermicro says direct-to-chip liquid-cooling technology enables a nice TCO with over 51% data center energy cost savings. The company also cites a 70% reduction in fan power usage, compared with air-cooled solutions.

If you’re looking for big HPC horsepower, Supermicro’s got your back with this 2U system. The company’s rack-scale integration is optimized with dual AIOM (advanced I/O modules) and 400G networking. This means you can create a high-density supercomputing cluster with as many as 21 of Supermicro’s 2U systems in a 48U rack. With each system combining four MI300A units, that would give you a total of 84 APUs.

The other Supermicro server (model number AS -4145GH-TNMR) is an air-cooled 4U system, also equipped with four AMD Instinct MI300A accelerators, and it’s intended for converged HPC-AI workloads. The system’s mechanical airflow design keeps thermal throttling at bay; if that’s not enough, the system also has 10 heavy-duty 80mm fans.

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Faster is better. Supermicro with 5th Gen AMD is faster

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Faster is better. Supermicro with 5th Gen AMD is faster

Supermicro servers powered by the latest AMD processors are up to 9 times faster than a previous generation, according to a recent benchmark.

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When it comes to servers, faster is just about always better.

With faster processors, workloads get completed in less time. End users get their questions answered sooner. Demanding high-performance computing (HPC) and AI applications run more smoothly. And multiple servers get all their jobs done more rapidly.

And if you’ve installed, set up or managed one of these faster systems, you’ll look pretty smart.

That’s why the latest benchmark results from Supermicro are so impressive, and also so important.

The tests show that Supermicro servers powered by the latest AMD processors are up to 9 times faster than a previous generation. These systems can make your customer happy—and make you look good.

SPEC Check

The benchmark in question are those of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corp., better known as SPEC. It’s a nonprofit consortium that sets benchmarks for running complete applications.

Supermicro ran its servers on SPEC’s CPU 2017 benchmark, a suite of 43 benchmarks that measures and compare compute-intensive performance. All of them stress a system’s CPU, memory subsystem and compiler—emphasizing all three of these components working together, not just the processor.

To provide a comparative measure of integer and floating-point compute-intensive performance, the benchmark uses two main metrics. The first is speed, or how much time a server needs to complete a single task. The second is throughput, in which the server runs multiple concurrent copies.

The results are given as comparative scores. In general, higher is better.

Super Server

The server tested was the Supermicro H14 Hyper server, model number AS 2126HS-TN. It’s powered by dual AMD EPYC 9965 processors and loaded with 1.5TB of memory.

This server has been designed for applications that include HPC, cloud computing, AI inferencing and machine learning.

In the floating-point measure, the new server, when compared with a SMC server powered by an earlier-gen AMD EPYC 7601, was 8x faster.

In the Integer Rate measure, compared with a circa 2018 SMC server, it’s almost 9x faster.

Impressive results. And remember, when it comes to servers, faster is better.

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Tech Explainer: Why does PCIe 5.0 matter? And what’s coming next?

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Tech Explainer: Why does PCIe 5.0 matter? And what’s coming next?

PCIe 5.0 connects high-speed components to servers and PCs. Versions 6 & 7, coming soon, will deliver even higher speeds for tomorrow’s AI workloads.

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You’ve no doubt heard of PCIe 5.0. But what is it exactly? And why does it matter?

As the name and number imply, PCIe 5.0 is the fifth generation of the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express interface standard. PCIe essentially sets the rules for connecting high-speed components such as GPUs, networking cards and storage devices to servers, desktop PCs and other devices.

To be sure, these components could be connected via a number of other interface standards, such as USB-C and SATA.

But PCIe 5.0 alone offers extremely high bandwidth and low latency. That makes it a better choice for mission-critical enterprise IT operations and resource-intensive AI workloads.

Left in the Dust

The 5th generation of PCIe was released in May 2019, bringing significant improvements over PCIe 4.0. These include:

  • Increased Bandwidth. PCIe 5.0 has a maximum throughput of 32 giga-transfers per second (GT/s)—effectively double the bandwidth of its predecessor. In terms of data transfer, 32 GT/s translates to around 4 GB of data throughput per lane in each direction. That allows for a total of 64 GB/s in a 16-lane PCIe-based GPU. That’s perfect for modern GPU-dependent workflows such as AI-inferencing.
  • Lower Latency. Keeping latency as low as possible is crucial for applications like gaming, high-performance computing (HPC) and AI workloads. High latency can inhibit data retrieval and processing, which in turn hurts both application performance and the user experience. The latency of PCIe 5.0 varies depending on multiple factors, including network connectivity, attached devices and workloads. But it’s safe to assume an average latency of around 100 nanoseconds (ns) — roughly 50% less than PCIe 4.0. And again, with latency, lower is better.
  • Enhanced Data-Center Features. Modern data-center operations are among the most demanding. That’s especially true for IT operations focused on GenAI, machine learning and telecom. So it’s no surprise that PCIe 5.0 includes several features focused on enhanced operations for data centers. Among the most notable is increased bandwidth and faster data access for NVMe storage devices. PCIe 5.0 also includes features that enhance power management and efficiency.

Leveraging PCIe 5

AMD is a front-runner in the race to help enterprises cope with modern AI workloads. And the company has been quick to take advantage of PCIe 5.0’s performance improvements. Take, for example, the AMD Instinct MI325X Accelerator.

This system is a leading-edge accelerator module for generative AI, inference, training and HPC. Each discrete AMD Instinct MI325X offers a 16-lane PCIe Gen 5 host interface and seven AMD Infinity Fabric links for full connectivity between eight GPUs in a ring.

By leveraging a PCIe 5.0 connection, AMD’s accelerator can offer I/O-to-host-CPU and scale-out network bandwidths of 128 GB/sec.

AMD is also using PCIe on its server processors. The new 5th generation AMD EPYC server processors take advantage of PCIe 5.0’s impressive facility. Specifically, the AMD EPYC 9005 Series processors support 128 PCIe 5 I/O lanes in a single-socket server. For dual-socket servers, support increases to 160 lanes.

Supermicro is another powerful force in enterprise IT operations. The company’s behemoth H14 8-GPU system (model number AS-8126GS-TNMR2) leverages AMD EPYC processors and AMD Instinct accelerators to help enterprises deploy the largest AI and large language models (LLMs).

The H14’s standard configuration includes eight PCIe 5.0 x16 low-profile slots and two full-height slots. Users can also opt for a PCIe expansion kit, which adds two additional PCIe 5.0 slots. That brings the grand total to an impressive 12 PCIe 5.0 16-lane expansion slots.

PCIe 6.0 and Beyond

PCIe 5.0 is now entering its sixth year of service. That’s not a long time in the grand scheme of things. But the current version might feel ancient to IT staff who need to eke out every shred of bandwidth to support modern AI workloads.

Fortunately, a new PCIe generation is in the works. The PCIe 6.0 specification, currently undergoing testing and development, will offer still more performance gains over its predecessor.

PCI-SIG, an organization committed to developing and enhancing the PCI standard, says the 6.0 platform’s upgrades will include:

  • A data rate of up to 64 GT/sec., double the current rate and providing a maximum bidirectional bandwidth of up to 256 GB/sec for x16 lanes
  • Pulse Amplitude Modulation with 4 levels (PAM4)
  • Lightweight Forward Error Correct (FEC) and Cyclic Redundancy Check (CRC) to mitigate the bit error rate increase associated with PAM4 signaling
  • Backwards compatibility with all previous generations of PCIe technology

There’s even a next generation after that, PCIe 7.0. This version could be released as soon as 2027, according to the PCI-SIG. That kind of speed makes sense considering the feverish rate at which new technology is being developed to enable and expand AI operations.

It’s not yet clear how accurate those release dates are. But one thing’s for sure: You won’t have to wait long to find out.

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Supermicro FlexTwin now supports 5th gen AMD EPYC CPUs

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Supermicro FlexTwin now supports 5th gen AMD EPYC CPUs

FlexTwin, part of Supermicro’s H14 server line, now supports the latest AMD EPYC processors — and keeps things chill with liquid cooling.

 

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Wondering about the server of the future? It’s available for order now from Supermicro.

The company recently added support for the latest 5th Gen AMD EPYC 9005 Series processors on its 2U 4-node FlexTwin server with liquid cooling.

This server is part of Supermicro’s H14 line and bears the model number AS -2126FT-HE-LCC. It’s a high-performance, hot-swappable and high-density compute system.

Intended users include oil & gas companies, climate and weather modelers, manufacturers, scientific researchers and research labs. In short, anyone who requires high-performance computing (HPC).

Each 2U system comprises four nodes. And each node, in turn, is powered by a pair of 5th Gen AMD EPYC 9005 processors. (The previous-gen AMD EPYC 9004 processors are supported, too.)

Memory on this Supermicro FlexTwin maxes out at 9TB of DDR5, courtesy of up to 24 DIMM slots. Expansions connect via PCIe 5.0, with one slot per node the standard and more available as an option.

The 5th Gen AMD EPYC processors, introduced last month, are designed for data center, AI and cloud customers. The series launched with over 25 SKUs offering up to 192 cores and all using AMD’s new “Zen 5” or “Zen 5c” architectures.

Keeping Cool

To keep things chill, the Supermicro FlexTwin server is available with liquid cooling only. This allows the server to be used for HPC, electronic design automation (EDA) and other demanding workloads.

More specifically, the FlexTwin server uses a direct-to-chip (D2C) cold plate liquid cooling setup, and each system also runs 16 counter-rotating fans. Supermicro says this cooling arrangement can remove up to 90% of server-generated heat.

The server’s liquid cooling also covers the 5th gen AMD processors’ more demanding cooling requirements; they’re rated at up to 500W of thermal design power (TDP). By comparison, some members of the previous, 4th gen AMD EPYC processors have a default TDP as low as 200W.

Build & Recycle

The Supermicro FlexTwin server also adheres to the company’s “Building Block Solutions” approach. Essentially, this means end users purchase these servers by the rack.

Supermicro says its Building Blocks let users optimize for their exact workload. Users also gain efficient upgrading and scaling.

Looking even further into the future, once these servers are ready for an upgrade, they can be recycled through the Supermicro recycling program.

In Europe, Supermicro follows the EU’s Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive. In the U.S., recycling is free in California; users in other states may have to pay a shipping charge.

Put it all together, and you’ve got a server of the future, available to order today.

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Tech Explainer: What is the AMD “Zen” core architecture?

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Tech Explainer: What is the AMD “Zen” core architecture?

Originally launched in 2017, this CPU architecture now delivers high performance and efficiency with ever-thinner processes.

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The recent release of AMD’s 5th generation processors—formerly codenamed Turin—also heralded the introduction of the company’s “Zen 5” core architecture.

“Zen” is AMD’s name for a design ethos that prioritizes performance, scalability and efficiency. As any CTO will tell you, these 3 aspects are crucial for success in today’s AI era.

AMD originally introduced its “Zen” architecture in 2017 as part of a broader campaign to steal market share and establish dominance in the all-important enterprise IT space.

Subsequent generations of the “Zen” design have markedly increased performance and efficiency while delivering ever-thinner manufacturing processes.

Now and Zen

Since the “Zen” core’s original appearance in AMD Ryzen 1000-series processors, the architecture’s design philosophy has maintained its focus on a handful of vital aspects. They include:

  • A modular design. Known as Infinity Fabric, it facilitates efficient connectivity among multiple CPU cores and other components. This modular architecture enhances scalability and performance, both of which are vital for modern enterprise IT infrastructure.
  • High core counts and multithreading. Both are common to EPYC and Ryzen CPUs built using the AMD “Zen” core architecture. Simultaneous multithreading enables each core to process 2 threads. In the case of EPYC processors, this makes AMD’s CPUs ideal for multithreaded workloads that include Generative AI, machine learning, HPC and Big Data.
  • Advanced manufacturing processes. These allow faster, more efficient communication among individual CPU components, including multithreaded cores and multilevel caches. Back in 2017, the original “Zen” architecture was manufactured using a 14-nanometer (nm) process. Today’s new “Zen 5” and “Zen 5c” architectures (more on these below) reduce the lithography to just 4nm and 3nm, respectively.
  • Enhanced efficiency. This enables IT staff to better manage complex enterprise IT infrastructure. Reducing heat and power consumption is crucial, too, both in data centers and at the edge. The AMD “Zen” architecture makes this possible by offering enterprise-grade EPYC processors that offer up to 192 cores, yet require a maximum thermal design power (TDP) of only 500W.

The Two-Fold Path

The latest, fifth generation “Zen” architecture is divided into two segments: “Zen 5” and “Zen 5c.”

“Zen 5” employs a 4-nanometer (nm) manufacturing process to deliver up to 128 cores operating at up to 4.1GHz. It’s optimized for high per-core performance.

“Zen 5c,” by contrast, offers a 3nm lithography that’s reserved for AMD EPYC 96xx, 97xx, 98xx, and 99xx series processors. It’s optimized for high density and power efficiency.

The most powerful of these CPUs—the AMD EPYC 9965—includes an astonishing 192 cores, a maximum boost clock speed of 3.7GHz, and an L3 cache of 384MB.

Both “Zen 5” and “Zen 5c” are key components of the 5th gen AMD EPYC processors introduced earlier this month. Both have also been designed to achieve double-digit increases in instructions per clock cycle (IPC) and equip the core with the kinds of data handling and processing power required by new AI workloads.

Supermicro’s Satori

AMD isn’t the only brand offering bold, new tech to harried enterprise IT managers.

Supermicro recently introduced its new H14 servers, GPU-accelerated systems and storage servers powered by AMD EPYC 9005 Series processors and AMD Instinct MI325X Accelerators. A number of these servers also support the new AMD “Turin” CPUs.

The new product line features updated versions of Supermicro’s vaunted Hyper system, Twin multinode servers, and AI-inferencing GPU systems. All are now available with the user’s choice of either air or liquid cooling.

Supermicro says its collection of purpose-built powerhouses represents one of the industry’s most extensive server families. That should be welcome news for organizations intent on building a fleet of machines to meet the highly resource-intensive demands of modern AI workloads.

By designing its next-generation infrastructure around AMD 5th Generation components, Supermicro says it can dramatically increase efficiency by reducing customers’ total data-center footprints by at least two-thirds.

Enlightened IT for the AI Era

While AMD and Supermicro’s advances represent today’s cutting-edge technology, tomorrow is another story entirely.

Keeping up with customer demand and the dizzying pace of AI-based innovation means these tech giants will soon return with more announcements, tools and design methodologies. AMD has already promised a new accelerator, the AMD Instinct MI350, will be formally announced in the second half of 2025.

As far as enterprise CTOs are concerned, the sooner, the better. To survive and thrive amid heavy competition, they’ll need an evolving array of next-generation technology. That will help them reduce their bottom lines even as they increase their product offerings—a kind of technological nirvana.

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Do your customers need more room for AI? AMD has an answer

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Do your customers need more room for AI? AMD has an answer

If your customers are looking to add AI to already-crowded, power-strapped data centers, AMD is here to help. 

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How can your customers make room for AI in data centers that are already full?

It’s a question that’s far from academic. Nine in 10 tech vendors surveyed recently by the Uptime Institute expect AI to be widely used in data centers in the next 5 years.

Yet data center space is both hard to find and costly to rent. Vacancy rates have hit new lows, according to real-estate services firm CBRE Group.

Worse, this combination of supply shortages and high demand is driving up data center pricing and rents. Across North America, CRBE says, pricing is up by 20% year-on-year.

Getting enough electric power is an issue, too. Some utilities have told prospective data-center customers they won’t get the power they requested until the next decade, reports The Wall Street Journal. In other cases, strapped utilities are simply giving customers less power than they asked for.

So how to help your customers get their data centers ready for AI? AMD has some answers. And a free software tool to help.

The AMD Solution

AMD’s solution is simple, with just 2 points:

  • Make the most of existing data-center real estate and power by consolidating existing workloads.
  • Replace the low-density compute of older, inefficient and out-of-warranty systems with compute that’s newer, denser and more efficient.

AMD is making the case that your customers can do both by moving from older Intel-based systems to newer ones that are AMD-based.

For example, the company says, replacing servers based on Intel Xeon 6143 Sky Lake processors with those based on AMD EPYC 9334 CPUs can result in the need for 73% fewer servers, 70% fewer racks and 69% less power.

That could include Supermicro servers powered by AMD EPYC processors. Supermicro H13 servers using AMD EPYC 9004 Series processors offer capabilities for high-performance data centers.

AMD hasn’t yet done comparisons with either its new 5th gen EPYC processors (introduced last week) or Intel’s 86xx CPUs. But the company says the results should be similar.

Consolidating processor-based servers can also make room in your customers’ racks for AMD Instinct MI300 Series accelerators designed specifically for AI and HPC workloads.

For example, if your customer has older servers based on Intel Xeon Cascade Lake processors, migrating them to servers based on AMD EPYC 9754 processors instead can gain them as much as a 5-to-1 consolidation.

The result? Enough power and room to accommodate a new AI platform.

Questions Answered

Simple doesn’t always mean easy. And you and your customers may have concerns.

For example, isn’t switching from one vendor to another difficult?

No, says AMD. The company cross-licenses the X86 instruction set, so on its processors, most workloads and applications will just work.

What about all those cores on AMD processors? Won’t they raise a customer’s failure domain too high?

No, says AMD. Its CPUs are scalable enough to handle any failure domain from 8 to 256 cores per server.

Wouldn’t moving require a cold migration? And if so, wouldn’t that disrupt the customer’s business?

Again, AMD says no. While moving virtual machines (VMs) to a new architecture does require a cold migration, the job can be done without any application downtime.

That’s especially true if you use AMD’s free open-source tool known as VAMT, short for VMware Architecture Migration Tool. VAMT automates cold migration. In one AMD test, it migrated hundreds of VMs in just an hour.

So if your customers among those struggling to find room for AI systems in their already-crowded and power-strapped data centers, tell them consider a move to AMD.

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AMD intros CPUs, accelerators, networking for end-to-end AI infrastructure -- and Supermicro supports

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AMD intros CPUs, accelerators, networking for end-to-end AI infrastructure -- and Supermicro supports

AMD expanded its end-to-end AI infrastructure products for data centers with new CPUs, accelerators and network controllers. And Supermicro is already offering supporting servers. 

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AMD today held a roughly two-hour conference in San Francisco during which CEO Lisa Su and other executives introduced a new generation of server processors, the next model in the Instinct MI300 Accelerator family, and new data-center networking devices.

As CEO Su told the audience the live and online audience, AMD is committed to offering end-to-end AI infrastructure products and solutions in an open, partner-dependent ecosystem.

Su further explained that AMD’s new AI strategy has 4 main goals:

  • Become the leader in end-to-end AI
  • Create an open AI software platform of libraries and models
  • Co-innovate with partners including cloud providers, OEMs and software creators
  • Offer all the pieces needed for a total AI solution, all the way from chips to racks to clusters and even entire data centers.

And here’s a look at the new data-center hardware AMD announced today.

5th Gen AMD EPYC CPUs

The EPYC line, originally launched in 2017, has become a big success for AMD. As Su told the event audience, there are now more than 950 EPYC instances at the largest cloud providers; also, AMD hardware partners now offer EPYC processors on more than 350 platforms. Market share is up, too: Nearly one in three servers worldwide (34%) now run on EPYC, Su said.

The new EPYC processors, formerly codenamed Turin and now known as the AMD EPYC 9005 Series, are now available for data center, AI and cloud customers.

The new CPUs also have a new core architecture known as Zen5. AMD says Zen5 outperforms the previous Zen4 generation by 17% on enterprise instructions-per-clock and up to 37% on AI and HPC workloads.

The new 5th Gen line has over 25 SKUs, and core count ranges widely, from as few as 8 to as many as 192. For example, the new AMD EPYC 9575F is a 65-core, 5GHz CPU designed specifically for GPU-powered AI solutions.

AMD Instinct MI325X Accelerator

About a year ago, AMD introduced the Instinct MI300 Accelerators, and since then the company committed itself to introducing new models on a yearly cadence. Sure enough, today Lisa Su introduced the newest model, the AMD Instinct MI325X Accelerator.

Designed for Generative AI performance and built on the AMD CDNA3 architecture, the new accelerator offers up to 256GB of HBM3E memory, and bandwidth up to 6TB/sec.

Shipments of the MI325X are set to begin in this year’s fourth quarter. Partner systems with the new AMD accelerator are expected to start shipping in next year’s first quarter.

Su also mentioned the next model in the line, the AMD Instinct MI350, which will offer up to 288GB of HBM3E memory. It’s set to be formally announced in the second half of next year.

Networking Devices

Forrest Norrod, AMD’s head of data-center solutions, introduced two networking devices designed for data centers running AI workloads.

The AMD Pensando Salina DPU is designed for front-end connectivity. It supports thruput of up to 400 Gbps.

The AMD Pensando Pollara 400, designed for back-end networks connecting multiple GPUs, is the industry’s first Ultra-Ethernet Consortium-ready AI NIC.

Both parts are sampling with customers now, and AMD expects to start general shipments in next year’s first half.

Both devices are needed, Norrod said, because AI dramatically raises networking demands. He cited studies showing that connectivity currently accounts for 40% to 75% of the time needed to run certain AI training and inference models.

Supermicro Support

Supermicro is among the AMD partners already ready with systems based on the new AMD processors and accelerator.

Wasting no time, Supermicro today announced new H14 series servers, including both Hyper and FlexTwin systems, that support the 5th gen AMD 9005 EPYC processors and AMD Instinct MI325X Accelerators.

The Supermicro H14 family includes three systems for AI training and inference workloads. Supermicro says the systems can also accommodate the higher thermal requirements of the new AMD EPYC processors, which are rated at up to 500W. Liquid cooling is an option, too.

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Research Roundup: AI and data centers, cybersec spending, AI for competitive advantage & sales

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Research Roundup: AI and data centers, cybersec spending, AI for competitive advantage & sales

Catch up on the latest IT industry market research and surveys. 

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The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence is putting new stress on data centers. Cybersecurity spending is growing faster than expected. Business leaders say AI is a competitive advantage. And AI could even help salespeople meet their quotas.

That’s some of the latest from top IT research and polling organizations. And here’s your roundup.

AI Needs More Juice

So much AI, so few data centers. That’s one of the more surprising side effects of the AI explosion.

Demand for data centers is rising. Also rising are data centers’ electric bills, says market watcher IDC.

All data centers use a lot of electric power. Add AI to the mix, and demand for juice rockets even higher.

That’s important because electricity already accounts for nearly half (46%) of the average enterprise data center’s total operational cost, and even more (60%) for the average service-provider’s data center, IDC says.

IDC now predicts that AI data center energy consumption will rise by a compound average growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 45% from now through 2028, when it will reach a global total of 146.2 terawatt hours.

Further, IDC expects overall global data center electricity consumption to more than double between 2023 and 2028, reaching 847 terawatt hours. That’s equivalent to a five-year CAGR of 19.5%.

Cybersec Spending: Up!

Cybersecurity spending rose nearly 10% in the second quarter of this year, reaching a worldwide total of $21.1 billion, according to industry analysts Canalys.

That fast rate of growth left Canalys surprised. It had expected both closer scrutiny of cyber budgets and slower contracts signings due to uncertainty about the economy.

Instead, vendors focused on cross-selling their platforms. Canalys says the top 12 cyber providers collectively accounted for more than half (53.2%) of total spending in Q2.

“Vendors are positioning their cybersecurity platforms to reduce customers’ complexity by consolidating redundant and legacy point products, says Canalys chief analyst Matthew Ball. “But this also reduces organizations’ resilience by increasing dependency on fewer vendors.”

Looking ahead, Canalys expects even bigger growth in spending on cyber services (as opposed to cyber technology). For the full year 2024, Canalys predicts cyber-services spending to grow by nearly 13% year-on-year, reaching a global total of $163.3 billion.

AI: The New Competitive Advantage

Nearly 7 in 10 business leaders (68%) say their organizations’ competitive advantage now depends on making the best use of artificial intelligence. So finds a new poll conducted by Forrester on behalf of credit-reporting site Experian.

In the survey, roughly 6 in 10 respondents (62%) also said their top AI use case is analyzing alternative data sources with Generative AI.

But business leaders are also looking for faster results. More than half the respondents (55%) said developing and deploying AI and machine-learning models takes them too much time.

The survey, conducted earlier this year, reached 1,320 business leaders in 10 countries across the EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions.

AI for Sales? Yes, Please

Add sales to the list of jobs that can be enhanced with AI. A new forecast from researchers at Gartner posits that sellers who partner effectively with AI tools are 3.7 times more likely to meet their quotas than are those who don’t use AI.

The forecast is based on Gartner’s recent survey of more than 1,025 B2B sellers.

Gartner also says that in response, senior sales officers will need to prepare their staff for a world with AI. That could include training salespeople with new AI skills, setting new sales priorities, and refining compensation and even career paths.

One possible snag: In Gartner’s survey, nearly three-quarters of the salespeople (72%) said they’re already overwhelmed by the number of skills required for their job. And fully half (50%) said they’re similarly overwhelmed by the amount of technology needed.

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