Dell's new PowerEdge servers, quantum solution accelerates HPC for all customers

Dell has announced the expansion of its PowerEdge server portfolio with three new products that aim to bring high-performance computing (HPC) to businesses of all sizes.

Built in collaboration with Intel and Nvidia, whose chips power Dell’s new servers, the leading launch is the PowerEdge XE9680 - the company’s first high-performance server to feature eight GPUs.

The PowerEdge XE9680 can be configured with either Nvidia H100 or Nvidia A100 Tensor Core GPUs to work in tandem with two upcoming 4th generation Intel Xeon processors to deliver faster performance in AI applications.

All three of the new server launches are also fitted with Dell’s new Smart Cooling technology that will assist in the smooth running of the equipment while performing tasks such as HPC modelling and simulation, and data visualisation.

“As the world’s largest privately-held cloud computing company, with 27 cloud data centre locations globally, it’s essential that we deploy technology to support the most demanding AI, machine learning, and high-performance computing workloads,” said J.J. Kardwell, CEO at Constant.

“Dell PowerEdge XE9680 servers with the Nvidia H100 Tensor Core GPU and A100 Tensor Core GPU will provide the capabilities needed to deliver maximum performance and value.”

The second launch, the Dell PowerEdge XE9640, aims to reduce an organisation’s energy costs by increasing the server’s rack density, combining it with a direct liquid cooling system - different from Smart Cooling’s air-cooled design.

The 2U server can be configured with four GPUs, combining Intel’s Xeon processors with silicon from its Data Center GPU Max series - Intel’s highest-density processors and the same chips that will be powering the Aurora supercomputer at Argonne National Laboratory.

Lastly, the Dell PowerEdge XE8640 is for businesses that work with machine learning models for rapid data analysis. The 4U server is fitted with four Nvidia H100 Tensor Core GPUs and two of the upcoming Intel Xeon Scalable processors.

“As compute innovation accelerates to keep pace with demand, customers are looking to upgrade their IT environments and harness advanced computing capabilities to speed discovery and insights,” said Rajesh Pohani, vice president of portfolio and product management for PowerEdge, HPC, and Core Compute at Dell Technologies.

“New Dell Technologies servers and solutions give businesses of all sizes access to technologies once only accessible for the world’s largest research institutions and government agencies, allowing them to tackle HPC, ease AI adoption, and propel their businesses forward.”

The new additions to the PowerEdge server portfolio tie into the Monday launch of the Dell Quantum Computing Solution - a hybrid classical-quantum platform that aims to help businesses run quantum computing workloads in the cloud or on-prem.

Designed with chemistry, natural language processing (NLP), and machine learning in mind, and built with IonQ technology, the platform integrates quantum computing into classical infrastructure, allowing customers to develop algorithmic approaches for simulators to run on PowerEdge servers.

Rounding off the new launches is the new Dell Validated Design for HPC - Risk Assessment which aims to provide more optimal system and memory configurations for more efficient risk assessments in areas such as the finance industry.

The intensive simulations run on Dell’s GPU-accelerated PowerEdge servers, as well as other HPC systems such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux and NVIDIA Bright Cluster Manager software.