Nvidia makes most energy efficient supercomputer of all time

Graphics card manufacturer introduces the DGX SaturnV with 63,488GB of RAM and 60,512 Intel Xeon E5-2698v4 CPU cores

Nvidia has introduced a new supercomputer, the DGX SaturnV, which has been hailed as the most energy efficient supercomputer of all time.

The machine sports an impressive 63,488GB of RAM and 60,512 Intel Xeon E5-2698v4 CPU cores. It also houses many of Nvidia's 125 DGX-1s, the so-called 'AI supercomputer in a box' modules designed for deep learning. It also uses the graphics card and chip manufacturer's Tesla P100 GPUs.

But its energy efficiency does not come at a huge cost to its performance, as the DGX SaturnV is also ranked as the world's 28th fastest supercomputer.

Nvidia claimed on its blog that it designed the computer to drive its AI programme.

"We're convinced AI can give every company a competitive advantage. That's why we've assembled the world's most efficient - and one of the most powerful - supercomputers to aid us in our own work.

"Assembled by a team of a dozen engineers using 124 DGX-1s - the AI supercomputer in a box we unveiled in April - SaturnV helps us build the autonomous driving software that's a key part of our Nvidia DRIVE PX 2 self-driving vehicle platform.

"We're also training neural networks to understand chipset design and very-large-scale-integration, so our engineers can work more quickly and efficiently. Yes, we're using GPUs to help us design GPUs.

"Most importantly, SaturnV's power will give us the ability to train - and design - new deep learning networks quickly," said Nvidia.

Back in June 2016 IBM promised to deliver a computer which would top the world's supercomputer rankings with its new machine, called Summit, which will be delivered to the US Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory in early 2018.

This was in part a response to a supercomputer from China - the Sunway TaihuLight System - taking the overall top spot away from the US for the first time earlier that month.