While maintaining ownership of the systems, businesses will buy Nvidia’s systems but will rely on Equinix for efficient operation and maintenance.
Equinix, a data centre operator, and chipmaker Nvidia announced their partnership to provide Nvidia’s supercomputing systems to business clients. The collaboration aims to simplify the process for companies to possess artificial intelligence computing systems, enhancing their control over data. Nvidia and Equinix revealed that this service became available as of Wednesday.
As part of the agreement, Nvidia has equipped Equinix staff with the necessary skills to construct and manage its systems. Businesses will buy Nvidia’s systems but will rely on Equinix for efficient operation and maintenance, while maintaining ownership of the systems.
Till now the prevalent method is to lease Nvidia’s leading-edge chips from cloud service providers like Amazon and Microsoft. Now, many large corporations are keen on acquiring their AI computing systems due to privacy and security concerns. Nvidia’s systems vary from standard data centre servers, with differences in networking cables and, in some cases, the use of liquid cooling.
Emphasising the importance of privacy, Jon Lin, Equinix’s executive vice president and general manager of data centre services, expressed significant concern of major clients about maintaining control over their operations. He acknowledged the challenges of effectively operating AI data centres, noting that such expertise is not widely available.
Equinix facilitates connections between different industries like finance, manufacturing, retail, transportation, government, healthcare, and education. It provides a platform, Platform Equinix, where businesses can access foundational infrastructure crucial for their success.
