Last May, US semiconductor giant Nvidia announced its intention of developing Israel-1, the most powerful supercomputer in Israel and the most powerful in the company worldwide. Although it was planned to be operational only at the end of the year, the first stage of development was completed earlier than expected, and the computer went into initial use today.
"With Nvidia’s Israel-1 AI supercomputer, a broad range of innovative companies in Israel will create AI that can transform the productivity and business models of enterprises around the world," Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang said, adding, "Israel is home to world-leading AI researchers and developers creating applications for the next wave of AI."
Israel-1 will initially be used for internal research and development, and as a basis for building supercomputers using the Nvidia Spectrum X platform, an accelerated communications platform developed in Israel that improves the performance and efficiency of AI clouds. One of the goals of the computer is to serve as a pioneering model for the construction of infrastructure for a generative AI cloud.
"After being built with extraordinary speed, Israel-1 is located here in Israel in order to boost the local research and engineering groups with the power of artificial intelligence," said Nvidia senior VP Gilad Shainer. "This amazing system will serve as an engine behind products and technologies that will deal with some of the biggest challenges in the world."
A source close to the company said, "The advantage of the computer being in Israel is that it puts the Israeli ecosystem at the forefront of the AI revolution."
Nvidia has also announced that Dell Technologies, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Lenovo will be the first to integrate Spectrum-X Ethernet networking technologies, developed, as mentioned, at the company’s Israel development center, for AI into their server lineups to help enterprise customers speed up generative AI workloads. "Accelerated networking is the catalyst for a new wave of systems from Nvidia’s leading server manufacturer partners to speed the shift to the era of generative AI," said Jensen Huang.
The second stage of the Israeli supercomputer is expected to be completed in the first half of 2024. The construction of the computer in Israel deepens Nvidia’s commitment to the country, and brings the cutting edge of AI to Israeli researchers and startups.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on November 21, 2023.
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