Reykjavik, Iceland June 2, 2021 – atNorth, formerly known as Advania Data Centers, has delivered an AI and deep learning system to Icelandic start-up Miðeind. The Supercomputer – built on HPE servers and powered by the latest generation of nVidia Graphic Processor Units (A100) – is hosted in atNorth’s Mjölnir Colocation Data Center facilities in the Reykjanesbær area in Iceland.
Miðeind will leverage the GPU powered system for language technology and artificial intelligence projects. This includes machine translation between Icelandic and other languages, summarization of texts, question answering and speech analysis.
At the heart of the software developed by Miðeind is a deep neural network that mimics the way the human brain works. The neural network will leverage the massive compute power of atNorth’s system to process large databases, deliver search results and support Miðeind’s Embla voice assistant application.
“With the addition of the new supercomputer to our arsenal, Miðeind will be able to work more independently and decisively than before on demanding and urgent projects in our field”, said Vilhjálmur Þorsteinsson, founder and CEO of Miðeind.
“Our team is itching to apply the hardware to various major challenges in Icelandic language technology and artificial intelligence. The collaboration with atNorth has been particularly agile and we look forward to continued growth in the collaboration,” Þorsteinsson continued.
Miðeind is a 10-person startup company, which participates in the language technology program of the Icelandic government, and is an active member of the Co-operation on Icelandic Language Technology (SÍM) group of companies, institutions and universities. The goal of the program is to protect and promote the Icelandic language, by ensuring that people can use Icelandic in communication with and through digital devices and computers.
In addition to working on the development of Embla, Miðeind runs Vélþýðing.is (an online machine translation service) and publishes Greyni, a language technology tool stack. Miðeind also publishes the popular Netskrafl word game website, used by more than 20,000 Icelanders.
atNorth is one of the fastest growing colocation data center companies in the Nordics and the largest data center operator in Iceland. In addition to traditional data center hosting services, the company also offers a High-Performance-Computing & Artificial Intelligence-as-a-Service (HPC & AI aaS) solutions through its GPU and CPU platform, HPCFLOW. HPCFLOW enables companies, such as Miðeind, to leverage performance optimized CPU or GPU enabled supercomputing clusters they require to power simulations, calculations, AI, Deep Learning or Machine Learning algorithms at any scale, without the need for big upfront investments.
HPCFLOW is a flexible solution that can be fully tuned to address the different companies’ needs. In Miðeind case, this is a compute cluster that leverages the NVIDIA GPU parallel computing capabilities required to run a demanding neural network system, a tailor-made system to meet Miðeind’s requirements.
Gísli Kr. Katrínarson, atNorth’s Chief Commercial Officer, points out that Miðeind works in one of the most exciting areas of information technology today, “GPU computing power will drive groundbreaking solutions that, in the case of Miðeind, support Icelandic language in a range of applications. It is very fitting that the cluster for Miðeind is also powered by 100% renewable Icelandic electricity.”
About atNorth
atNort, previously Advania Data Centers, are a Nordic data center company headquartered in Reykjavik, Iceland. With two data center campuses in Iceland and one under construction in Sweden, the company offers innovative services and solutions to the high-density compute market. atNorth’s flagship Infrastructure-as-a-Service product, HPCFLOW, is an AI and HPC-as-a-Service solution that allows HPC operators to consume HPC infrastructure in the most efficient manner possible. All atNorth solutions are powered with renewable energy and feature high-power efficiency with a PUE starting from 1,03.
About Miðeind
Miðeind is a privately owned startup company based in Reykjavík, Iceland, specializing in Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence applications for the Icelandic language. The company is a leading participant in the Icelandic Government’s Language Technology Program and has brought several software-as-a-service offerings to market, including machine translation and spelling and grammar checking. It also publishes Embla, a popular voice assistant app for smartphones.
