NVIDIA and Arm Authenticate NVLink Fusion Partnerships with Neoverse AI Platforms
NVIDIA and Arm have strengthened their relationship by announcing support for an NVIDIA NVLink Fusion interconnect on Arm's Neoverse AI data center platforms. This collaboration is intended to improve performance efficiency for AI workloads by adding the bandwidth necessary for inter-chip coherency.
Core Technologies from Both Partners
This completes the picture from an earlier effort, wherein NVIDIA launched Grace Hopper and related work aimed at meeting the growing performance demands of the AI age. The most significant aspect of this announcement can be viewed as:
- An NVIDIA NVLink Fusion: This is a high-bandwidth, coherent interconnect that links CPUs, GPUs, and other accelerators into a unified, rack-scale architecture. The primary function of NVLink is to eliminate memory and bandwidth bottlenecks that suspend AI system performance.
- Arm Neoverse: A data center CPU architecture that is widely deployed among the major hyperscalers including AWS, Google, and Microsoft. It is expected to capture a significant share within the hyperscaler market.
- Arm AMBA CHI C2C: The critical protocol that enables the seamless and high-bandwidth connection between NVLink Fusion and Neoverse-based SoCs, ensuring coherent data movement between Arm-based CPUs and accelerators.
Impact on AI Ecosystem and Partners
This opportunity has much to offer ecosystem partners. They can gain more choice and perhaps flexibility in designing AI systems as they can now directly source their Arm-based CPUs or IP into the wider NVIDIA NVLink ecosystem.
As one NVIDIA spokesperson said,
"Folks building their own ARM CPU, or using an Arm IP, can actually have access to NVLink Fusion, be able to connect that ARM CPU to an Nvidia GPU or to the rest of the NVLink ecosystem."
It will most likely culminate in energy-efficient differentiated systems boasting higher performance and scalability, thereby enabling faster integration with a reduced time-to-market for next-generation AI hardware.
Redefining Standards of AI Infrastructure
This collaboration aims to set a standard for AI infrastructure that is new in its combination of Arm's foundational CPU architecture with NVIDIA's advanced interconnect technology. The emphasis on co-design and "intelligence per watt" will probably set the architecture of future AI-driven data centres.
