Servers from major vendors such as HPE and Dell have been certified to provide optimized AI performance. Credit: Nvidia Nvidia is offering a certification program to steer customers and partners to buy GPU servers specifically tailored for artificial intelligence (AI) workloads from top-tier OEMs and ODMs. The program, called Nvidia-Certified Systems, is similar to those offered by Intel and AMD. It tells customers that these servers with these configurations are best optimized for running AI workloads at peak performance and in large-scale deployments. Nvidia kicked off the program with 14 certified GPU servers from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell Technologies, Gigabyte, Supermicro, and Inspur. All systems feature the A100 Ampere GPU and Mellanox smartNICs for moving massive amounts of data. That’s just a start. The company said there are 70 systems from 11 system makers engaged in the program. There is no cost for OEMs and other partners to participate in the certification program. In order to achieve certification, the servers must pass tests on deep-learning training and inference, machine learning algorithms, intelligent video analytics, and network and storage offload, all of which are based on software from Nvidia’s NGC catalog. Nvidia-Certified Systems come with as many as eight A100 GPUs and high-speed InfiniBand or Ethernet network adapters. Others are mainstream AI systems tailored to run AI at the edge of the corporate network. OEMs certify the systems using Nvidia Mellanox cables, switches and network cards such as ConnectX-6 InfiniBand or Ethernet adapters and BlueField-2 DPUs. In addition to high throughput at low latency, these adapters support multiple layers of security, from a hardware root of trust at boot time to connection tracking for applications. All Nvidia-Certified Systems are available with enterprise support across the full software stack, including support for open-source code. Related content news AWS and Nvidia partner on Project Ceiba, a GPU-powered AI supercomputer The companies are extending their AI partnership, and one key initiative is a supercomputer that will be integrated with AWS services and used by Nvidia’s own R&D teams. By Andy Patrizio Nov 30, 2023 3 mins CPUs and Processors Generative AI Supercomputers news VMware stung by defections and layoffs after Broadcom close Layoffs and executive departures are expected after an acquisition, but there's also concern about VMware customer retention. By Andy Patrizio Nov 30, 2023 3 mins Virtualization Data Center Industry news AI partly to blame for spike in data center costs Low vacancies and the cost of AI have driven up colocation fees by 15%, DatacenterHawk reports. By Andy Patrizio Nov 27, 2023 4 mins Generative AI Data Center opinion Winners and losers in the Top500 supercomputer ranking Besides Nvidia, who had a great showing on the list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers? Almost everyone. By Andy Patrizio Nov 20, 2023 4 mins CPUs and Processors Data Center Podcasts Videos Resources Events NEWSLETTERS Newsletter Promo Module Test Description for newsletter promo module. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe