In this guest post from OneStop Systems, Tim Miller, Vice President Strategic Development for OSS, explores how high performance embedded computing can address the growing HPC at the Edge and HPC on the move markets.
Tim Miller, President, SkyScale
‘AI on the Fly’ is the next killer application for High Performance Computing technology, but not many technology vendors have the range and skill set required to deliver effective solutions. The demand for these solutions is expanding rapidly with the ever increasing utility of artificial intelligence applications across a wide set of industries. The industries showing the largest proliferation of use cases for ‘AI on the Fly’ include deep learning, transportation, security, defense, manufacturing, retail, media and entertainment. Why is deep learning training only done in the datacenter and inferencing only done in the field when high performance computers that can be deployed in the field exist today? To identify hostile threats from planes or on the battlefield, predicting maintenance requirements at the oil field or piloting autonomous vehicles that learn on-the-fly instead of in a datacenter, these applications require local high performance processing. The need to acquire vast quantities of data at ever faster rates and then apply sophisticated analysis algorithms in real time requires all the traditional capabilities of high performance computing but now deployed at the edge and in mobile platforms.
These edge applications have unique requirements over traditional embedded computing. There is no compromise possible in delivering high performance while maintaining efficient space, weight and power. Delivering the high performance required in edge applications necessitates PCIe interconnectivity providing the fast data highway between high speed processors, NVMe storage and compute accelerators using GPUs or application specific FPGAs. With the IBM Power 9 servers shipping now and AMD’s recent announcement of 7nm EPYC processors with Gen 4 PCIe available in servers later in 2019, this year is expected to see broadening deployments of PCIe Gen4 with signaling rates of 16GT/s per lane (16 gigatransfers per second). ‘AI on the Fly’ high performance applications will naturally demand this capability on the edge. Additionally, these solutions often require unique space and power saving form factors and specialized rugged enclosures.
Providing AI or HPC solutions at the edge often require partnerships between OEMs with deep vertical market and application expertise and technology experts who can provide the underlying high performance building blocks and system design expertise. In Europe, OEMs developing solutions for edge and mobile HPC applications typically seek development partners who can not only provide the unique expertise required in power efficient HPC, PCIe interconnect, industrial computing, military systems, ruggedization and custom form factors, but who also have an established European capability. They need partners with brand recognition built on years of delivering high quality products in a responsive and cost effective manner and partners who can provide local design in capability and local pre- and post-sale project support.
Providing AI or HPC solutions at the edge often require partnerships between OEMs with deep vertical market and application expertise and technology experts who can provide the underlying high performance building blocks and system design expertise.
We believe that the recent combination of One Stop Systems and Bressner create an ideal European ‘AI on the Fly’ embedded HPC partner for OEMs addressing the growing HPC at the Edge and HPC on the move markets. OSS brings over 20 years of HPC and PCIe custom solution expertise providing solutions from airborne storage systems to ruggedized media servers. OSS is a partner with NVIDIA® and is an expert in developing specialized high performance systems based on NVIDIA GPUs. OSS is a leader in PCIe Gen4 with the first available 16 lane host adapter now and a full product line transition to Gen4 in 2019. Bressner has been a force in European industrial computing for over 25 years and has an established reputation with some of the largest industrial companies on the continent. The integration of the core competencies of these two companies and their global design capability now provide a premier partner in Europe to address the next killer application in High Performance embedded Computing: ‘AI on the Fly.’
This article may contain forward-looking statements based on One Stop Systems’ current expectations and assumptions regarding the company’s business and performance, the economy and other future conditions and forecasts of future events, circumstances and results.
Tim Miller is president of SkyScale.
