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On September 20, 2024
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Alibaba Cloud teases new modular datacenter architecture
Also reveals boosted utilization rates, upgraded IaaS and more - all in the name of AI apps Alibaba Cloud has revealed a modular datacenter architecture it claims will help it to satisfy demand for AI infrastructure by improving performance and build times for new facilities. Announced at its annual Apsara conference yesterday, the "CUBE DC 5.0" architecture was described as using "prefabricated modular designs" plus "advanced and proprietary technologies such as wind-liquid hybrid cooling system, all-direct current power distribution architecture and smart management system." Alibaba Cloud hasn't explained those techs in depth, but claims the modular approach reduces deployment times by up to 50 percent compared to traditional datacenter building techniques. The Register has asked Alibaba to explain the workings of a "wind-liquid hybrid cooling system." For what it's worth, machine translation of the term into Mandarin, then fed into search engines, produced results describing cold plate cooling - a technique that sees thin reservoirs of cooled liquids placed on hardware, with cooling achieved by circulating liquid and/or blowing air across the plates. Whatever the term describes, CEO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Eddie Wu told the conference his company "is investing heavily in building an AI infrastructure for the future." "These enhancements are not just about keeping up with AI demands but about setting a global standard for efficiency and sustainability." Other steps towards that goal include a scheduler said to better manage hardware resources so that they achieve up to 90 percent utilization rates. Alibaba Cloud's IaaS offering, the Enterprise Elastic Compute Service (ECS), has reached its ninth generation. Conference attendees were told it is better equipped for AI applications as it has improved recommendation engine speeds by 30 percent and database read/write queries per second by 17 percent. Also at the conference, Alibaba Cloud announced an "Open Lake data utility" that integrates multiple big data engines so they can be used by generative AI applications. Another new offering, "DMS: OneMeta+OneOps," apparently combines and manages metadata from 40 different data sources. It's 2024, so Alibaba Cloud also announced some AI news: the release of its Qwen 2.5 multimodal models, available in sizes from 0.5 to 72 billion parameters, supporting 29 languages and tuned for the needs of sectors including automotive and gaming. The new models are said to have "enhanced knowledge [and] stronger capabilities in math and coding." A text-to-video AI model that works with both Chinese and English prompts, Tongyi Wanxiang, was also released. "The new model is capable of generating high-quality videos in a wide variety of visual styles from realistic scenes to 3D animation," boasted Alibaba Cloud execs. ®
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Alibaba says its is ready for AI demand with new modular datacenter architecture
Cloud storage provider Alibaba has introduced its next-generation data center architecture which it says is designed to support rising demand for AI infrastructure globally. CUBE DC 5.0, announced at Alibaba's annual Apsara conference, is a new architecture that's designed to be modular. It can be deployed to improve data center performance, and promises considerable build time reductions as enterprises scale artificial intelligence. According to the Chinese-owned cloud computing company, CUBE DC 5.0 can cut deployment times by up to 50% compared with traditional methods. Alibaba's latest architecture, built around prefabricated modular components, includes technologies like wind-liquid hybrid cooling, an all-direct current power distribution architecture and a smart management system. Full details of the cooling system have not been disclosed, however the wind-liquid hybrid system is believed to integrate liquid cooling plates and airflow in order to optimize hardware cooling.. Eddie Wu, Alibaba Cloud Intelligence CEO, emphasized the significance of the new development in a world where cloud technologies are under increased scrutiny for their energy and resource usage: "These enhancements are not just about keeping up with AI demands but about setting a global standard for efficiency and sustainability." The new CUBE DC 5.0 architecture forms part of the company's broader commitment to advance AI infrastructure, and came alongside other announcements including a new AI Scheduler that promises an impressive 90% efficiency rate. Alibaba also released updates to its Enterprise Elastic Compute Service, now in its ninth generation, including a 30% boost in recommendation engine speed and a 17% increase in database read/write operations. Jingren Zhou, CTO of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, added: "We remain committed to investing in advanced AI infrastructure to foster the widespread adoption of generative AI technologies across different industries."
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Alibaba Cloud introduces a new modular datacenter architecture designed to handle the increasing demand for AI workloads. The innovative design promises improved efficiency and scalability for cloud computing infrastructure.
Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, has announced a groundbreaking modular datacenter architecture aimed at addressing the growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) workloads. This innovative approach to datacenter design marks a significant step forward in cloud computing infrastructure 1.
The new architecture boasts several key features that set it apart from traditional datacenter designs:
Alibaba Cloud's modular datacenter units come in standardized sizes, with each unit capable of housing up to 3,000 servers. The company claims that these units can be deployed in as little as six months, significantly reducing the time-to-market for new datacenter capacity 1.
One of the standout features of this new architecture is its focus on energy efficiency. Alibaba Cloud reports that their modular datacenters can achieve a power usage effectiveness (PUE) as low as 1.09, which is considerably better than the industry average. This improvement in energy efficiency aligns with the growing emphasis on sustainable computing practices 2.
The rapid growth of AI applications has placed unprecedented demands on cloud infrastructure. Alibaba Cloud's modular architecture is specifically designed to handle the intensive computational requirements of AI workloads, including both training and inference tasks. This positions the company to compete more effectively in the burgeoning market for AI-focused cloud services 1.
The introduction of this modular datacenter architecture could have significant implications for the cloud computing market. By offering a more flexible and efficient solution for AI workloads, Alibaba Cloud is positioning itself to capture a larger share of the growing demand for AI-related cloud services. This move may prompt other major cloud providers to accelerate their own innovations in datacenter design and efficiency 2.
As AI continues to play an increasingly central role in various industries, the demand for efficient and scalable cloud infrastructure is expected to grow. Alibaba Cloud's modular datacenter architecture represents a forward-thinking approach to meeting this demand. It remains to be seen how quickly the company can deploy these new datacenters at scale and how effectively they will perform under real-world AI workloads 1.
Reference
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Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, has announced new AI models and improved infrastructure to support AI computing. The company aims to empower customers and partners with advanced AI capabilities and high-performance computing resources.
3 Sources
Supermicro, a leader in AI infrastructure, has introduced liquid cooling technology that increases computing power by 30% without additional energy consumption. This development comes as the AI industry faces growing power demands and environmental concerns.
2 Sources
Alibaba Cloud, the digital technology and intelligence backbone of Alibaba Group, has announced a new pricing strategy and improved service availability for its international customers. The move aims to provide more competitive and transparent pricing while enhancing the overall customer experience.
2 Sources
The rapid growth of artificial intelligence is causing a surge in energy consumption by data centers, challenging sustainability goals and straining power grids. This trend is raising concerns about the environmental impact of AI and the tech industry's ability to balance innovation with eco-friendly practices.
8 Sources
Oracle has announced the world's first zettascale AI supercomputer, featuring 131,072 NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs. This groundbreaking system, delivering 2.4 zettaflops of AI performance, will be available through Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
6 Sources