Nvidia Showcases EGX Computing Platform for Massive Data Transfers
Nvidia has introduced its EGX platform. The supercomputing platform is specifically intended for companies that need to process large amounts of data. Through the platform, companies can process more than 1.6 terabytes of data per second.
Nvidia presented the platform during the Mobile World Congress in Los Angeles. At the same time, the company also announced that several large companies are now working with EGX. For example, Samsung, Walmart and BMW are now using it. Large cities such as Las Vegas and San Francisco also use EGX to process data. They use it, for example, to optimize pedestrian and traffic flows. In Walmart, EGX is used to tell employees which tasks are best for them to perform at a given time.
EGX is a platform where Nvidia’s own Cuda-X software is run on servers of certified partners. Nvidia is collaborating with Microsoft, Ericsson and Red Hat for this. These must be servers with powerful GPUs in them; Nvidia says in the certification program that there must be an Nvidia T4, Quadro RTX 8000 or V100 Tensor Core GPU in the server. The EGX software stack is called Nvidia ‘GPU Operator’ and it contains the driver and monitoring software for the GPU, as well as the tools needed to deploy Kubernetes systems.
The platform is intended to process large amounts of data in real time. Nvidia is therefore targeting developments such as 5G, the Internet of Things, smart cities and other projects in which more and more data must be sent. This concerns, for example, factories or department stores where more and more automated work takes place, or cities that use smart technologies. Nvidia wants to run those processes, and their security, from the cloud.
The platform has several software packages that are used for different applications. For example, there is Metropolis, which allows municipalities to build smart cities. With the Aerial SDK, telecom providers can set up virtualized 5G networks to, for example, set up cloud gaming processes. In the case of Walmart, Nvidia says, more than 1.6 terabytes of data are sent per second through the platform.