Core42’s NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD ranks as Middle East's largest HPC system
Ranked second-largest SuperPOD globally, 25th largest HPC system worldwide
#UAE #HPC - The 64th edition of the TOP500 list has ranked Core42’s NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD™ as the Middle East’s most powerful high-performance computing (HPC) system, the second-largest NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD deployment worldwide, and the 25th largest HPC system globally. Based in the UAE and a subsidiary of G42, Core42 specialises in sovereign cloud and AI infrastructure. The company announced delivery of its new SuperPOD in October, as a significant expansion of its Next-Generation AI Cloud offering. The TOP500 list ranks the top 500 most powerful commercially available computer systems worldwide.
SO WHAT? - The rapidly growing adoption of artificial intelligence in the UAE and the wider region is driving demand for compute, as government and private sector organisations rely more heavily on AI. However, the local availability of high performance infrastructure remains limited, with many organisations forced to use cloud services overseas, or to use less powerful on-premise systems. One of the challenges in providing the high performance infrastructure required for AI, has been the increased restrictions from the US government on the export of AI chips.
For the past 18 months, Core42 has been able to provide superfast AI infrastructure via its US-based Condor Galaxy supercomputer cloud built in partnership with Cerebras. The deployment of Core42’s NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD, as the largest and most powerful AI-ready computer system in the UAE, is a breakthrough for national AI infrastructure. Via the new SuperPOD, Core42 can now provide HPC to government and other demanding enterprise users fully within the UAE’s borders, via its Regulated Technology Environment.
Here are some more details about G42’s NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD and TOP500:
The 64th edition of the TOP500 list of the 500 known most powerful commercially available computer systems in the world, has ranked Core42’s news NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD with NVIDIA DGX H100 systems architecture as the 25th most powerful commercially available computer system in the world.
The TOP500 list also reveals that Core42’s system is the second most powerful NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD known and the most powerful commercial high performance computing (HPC) system in the Middle East.
According to TOP500, Core42's NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD has 185,712 CPU and GPU cores, powered by Intel Xeon Platinum 8480C processors and NVIDIA DGX H100 GPUs, with HGX accelerated systems built using Dell PowerEdge XE9680 and VAST Data’s platform. TOP500 says that the system has Rmax1 performance of 55.81 petaflops and a theoretical peak (Rpeak2) of 87.27 petaflops.
The system integrates NVIDIA’s H100 architecture, featuring 16,896 CUDA cores, 528 Tensor cores, and 80GB HBM2e memory, offering up to 3x performance improvement over the H100’s predecessor, the NVIDIA A100.
Marketed by NVIDIA as a turnkey AI data center, the DGX SuperPOD enables scalable AI applications, eliminating platform complexity for organizations.
Core42’s Nvidia DGX SuperPOD configuration delivers superior acceleration for AI, HPC, and data analytics workloads.
The expanded offering addresses the region’s growing demand for sovereign AI infrastructure, critical for regulated industries and public sector needs.
Core42’s SuperPOD runs NVIDIA AI Enterprise, enabling businesses to deploy generative AI models and advanced inferencing capabilities locally.
Core42 also plans to deploy NVIDIA H200 Tensor Core GPUs that will be made available to further extend its AI Cloud offering.
ZOOM OUT - As Saudi Arabia, the UAE and their technology partners continue to invest heavily in AI and data infrastructure, competition to provide the most powerful HPC systems is only going to increase. In 2023’s TOP500 ranking, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) HPE Cray EX supercomputer Shaheen III, was ranked as the Middle East’s most powerful system. In September, the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) announced plans to scale up its NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD to create one of the largest high-performance computing data centres in the MENA region, eventually scaling to 5,000 GPUs and deploying Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture. Meanwhile, Aramco already has five HPC systems on TOP500’s list with a theoretical combined peak performance equivalent to 113 Petaflops, but the oil giant is sure to continue to invest in more powerful systems.
LINKS
TOP500 2024 list (TOP500)
Read more about HPC in the Middle East:
Groq to offer on-demand services from KSA by year end (Middle East AI News)
The Middle East’s most powerful supercomputer (Middle East AI News)
Cerebras and G42 begin building CG-2 (Middle East AI News)
Cerebras & G42 build massive supercomputer network (Middle East AI News)
Rmax - Maximal LINPACK performance achieved (TOP500)
Rpeak - Theoretical peak performance (TOP500)