Why AI and HPC Demand a New Class of Data Centers

AI has been a major driver in the evolution of compute infrastructure, creating huge demand for GPUs and AI accelerators. But AI workloads aren’t the only ones that require high-density, high-performance compute (HPC). Major financial institutions use HPC for simulations that model the probability of various outcomes. In the aerospace and automotive industries, computational fluid dynamics uses HPC to simulate how liquids and gases move and interact with surfaces. HPC is also used in applications ranging from weather prediction and climate modeling to genomics and bioinformatics.

Before long, it’s likely that a large portion of compute will be high performance. And that means data centers will need to be equipped to handle high-density workloads. HPC workloads have a slew of special data center requirements that can complicate deployments and application performance. You need a robust power supply, advanced cooling technologies and high-bandwidth, low-latency networking. The physical data center space must be designed for dense racks and specialized water distribution. And you need operations professionals with the expertise to manage and maintain HPC environments.

Trying to build data centers like this by yourself, in the right locations, is a gargantuan endeavor that’s costly, time-consuming and technically complex. Given how quickly HPC is changing, a DIY facility could be outdated in just a few years. Retrofitting a space to meet new technical requirements is also complicated and expensive—not to mention the difficulty of scaling workloads and expanding to new locations. How do you answer these challenges? Deploy HPC workloads in purpose-built high-performance data centers run by data center experts.

Let’s take a closer look at the most common challenges high-performance data centers can help you tackle.

Challenge 1: Access to operational expertise to run HPC hardware

Getting specialized hardware for AI and HPC has been a big problem in the last few years, but closely related is the difficulty of finding the right expertise on the data center environment needed to support these initiatives. Getting started with AI and HPC is hard enough: How do you choose the right hardware and solution design? What level of performance do you need? Can the solution scale? What are the power, cooling and networking requirements? It’s nearly impossible to answer these questions if you’re launching something new that no one in your organization has ever done.

High-performance data centers de-risk your investment in HPC gear by providing an optimized environment for it to land in that’s designed and operated by data center experts. Since these data centers are designed for high-density workloads, they already have the right power, cooling and networking infrastructure to support HPC. Instead of spending a lot of time and money building a specialized facility yourself, you can focus on your HPC use cases and the equipment that will maximize their performance.

Challenge 2: Network performance problems

Whether we’re talking about high-frequency trading, weather forecasting or another HPC use case, fast data transit is of the essence. HPC workloads typically require high-bandwidth, low-latency interconnection to internal clusters, and numerous clouds and services. Building a DIY network to support those requirements across many sites and geographies is an engineering feat that requires a large upfront capital investment and could take months or even years to finish, not to mention involve complicated contracts you’ll be locked into for years.

There’s an easier way to get the network performance HPC workloads require: Deploy in a high-performance data center. These facilities are designed to be interconnection-friendly, providing high-performance physical and virtual networking solutions. They can deliver optimized hybrid multicloud networking with built-in redundancy to support AI and HPC workloads across global locations, with much faster resource provisioning.

Challenge 3: Interoperability across hybrid multicloud environments

HPC solutions aren’t built using a single vendor or technology stack; they use numerous clouds, SaaS solutions, networks, AI services and more. Getting diverse services to work together smoothly across locations can be a nightmare.

High-performance data centers are already engineered for heterogeneous tech stacks and can thus simplify connectivity across hybrid multicloud environments. Such facilities derisk connectivity for HPC by providing rich business ecosystems so you can easily connect to any provider you need now and in the future. Software-defined interconnection gives you maximum flexibility to change providers and services quickly as your initiatives evolve.

Challenge 4: Data privacy and regulatory compliance

Many HPC initiatives involve sensitive and proprietary data. Data privacy can be a concern because of the nature of the data (for example, health data or financial records) or because it’s intellectual property that differentiates your business. The only way to ensure data security and privacy is to use private infrastructure to control who has access and where your data flows.

Adding to that complexity is an atmosphere of increasing data regulation. New data sovereignty laws require organizations to be strategic about where they store and transfer data. Regulatory compliance can get complex for a business operating in many countries. However, deploying HPC workloads with a high-performance data center provider with a global footprint can derisk privacy and compliance. You can use infrastructure in a private cage that’s under your control, on a private network you control, working with a data center operator that partners with you to meet regulatory requirements.

Challenge 5: Outages and downtime

High-performance workloads consume significant computing resources, both GPUs and CPUs, and rely on support systems like power, cooling, networking and storage. They’re also less tolerant of downtime. This complexity makes HPC systems a bit more susceptible to outages, so it’s vital for companies to plan for business continuity. If building a DIY high-performance facility is a major investment, imagine doubling or tripling that cost to increase resilience.

Deploying HPC workloads with a data center provider with a global footprint and mature operational practices derisks those investments. These facilities are not only designed for continuous operation; they can also ensure a faster recovery from an outage, should it ever happen.

Challenge 6: Efficient cooling for high-density workloads

As compute density increases, air cooling alone can’t remove heat fast enough to keep high-performance systems operating at their best. Liquid cooling is much more efficient, and it’s an inevitability for AI and HPC workloads. But it also introduces technical complexities. For instance, how do you distribute fluid, maintain its quality, prevent leaks and mitigate problems quickly if they arise?

Fluid dynamics is a complex area most engineers simply don’t have expertise in. But high-performance data centers can help. Data center operators have the economies of scale to invest in liquid cooling infrastructure, and they’re often designed to integrate liquid cooling technologies from the start. Instead of taking on the complexity of operating liquid cooling infrastructure, you can just focus on your HPC initiatives.

High-performance data centers to the rescue

If you want to get a high-performance solution off the ground quickly and minimize the risk of your investment, there’s no doubt that a high-performance data center can help.

Equinix has designed high-performance facilities to meet the needs of modern HPC workloads. Building state-of-the-art data centers is our wheelhouse, and we have experts working at the forefront of data center design to prepare our facilities for the challenges of today and tomorrow. Deploying HPC workloads at Equinix means you can focus on your application and leave the technical complexities to us. As high-performance compute continues to evolve, we’ll continue innovating on our data center design to meet its needs.

Learn more about the data centers built for high-performance workloads in High-Performance Data Centers For Dummies.