How Nvidia built Selene, the world's seventh-fastest supercomputer, in three weeks

guest · Aug 15, 2020

How Nvidia built Selene, the world's seventh-fastest computer, in three weeks
August 14, 2020
https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-n...rlds-seventh-fastest-computer-in-three-weeks/

The COVID-19 outbreak brought new challenges for Nvidia, as it set out to build Selene, the fourth generation of its DGX SuperPODs. Reduced staff and building restrictions complicated the task, but Nvidia managed to go from bare racks in the data center to a fully operational system in just three-and-a-half weeks.

Selene is now a Top 10 supercomputer, the fastest industrial system in the US, and the fastest MLPerf machine that's commercially available.
The task of building Selene during the pandemic underscored the benefits of the design principles Nvidia has adopted, and it created a new sense of urgency to get the machine up and running.

"The whole point initially was to enable deployment very, very quickly so that we could get our researchers up and on," Michael Houston, a chief architect who leads the Nvidia systems team, told reporters.
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Since its Spring deployment, Selene has run thousands of jobs a week, often simultaneously. It runs AI data analytics, traditional machine learning, and HPC applications.

The system was built with layers of automation. For instance, Selene talks to Nvidia staff over a Slack channel as if it were a co-worker, reporting loose cables and isolating malfunctioning hardware so the system can keep running.
Meanwhile, Nvidia uses a telepresence robot from Double Robotics -- named Trip -- to let staff virtually observe Selene via the robot's camera and microphone.
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Nvidia: AI of the Storm: How We Built the Most Powerful Industrial Computer in the U.S. in Three Weeks During a Pandemic

While many supercomputers tap exotic, proprietary designs that take months to commission, Selene is based on an open architecture NVIDIA shares with its customers.
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