Nvidia, one of the world’s leading chip makers, announced on Monday that it was developing the most powerful artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputer in Israel – in order to meet the rising demand for AI in the country.
The Israeli supercomputer, which has been named Israel-1, is expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to fully develop and will be partly operational by the end of 2023, according to Nvidia.
Go deeper with GlobalData
The cloud-based system will deliver performance of up to eight exaflops of AI computing and is hoping to be one of the most powerful AI supercomputers ever built.
Nvidia said it was boosting supply to meet the surging demand for its AI chips and has forecasted second-quarter revenue more than 50% above initial Wall Street estimates, Reuters reported.
The new development comes as Nvidia is gearing up to be welcomed as the first US chipmaker in the trillion-dollar club, after its shares rose 3.8% in trading on Tuesday. The company is currently valued at $998bn.
According to Gilad Shainer, senior vice president at Nvidia, the company has collaborated with tens of thousands of software engineers and 800 Israeli startups to create Israel-1.
US Tariffs are shifting - will you react or anticipate?
Don’t let policy changes catch you off guard. Stay proactive with real-time data and expert analysis.
By GlobalDataShainer claimed that AI was the “most important technology in our lifetime”, emphasising the need to develop AI and generative AI applications large graphics processing units (GPUs), Reuters reported.
Shainer made it clear that Nvidia’s Israeli partners were the company’s priority for the supercomputer, stating that the system could be used with partners outside of Israel in the future.
Israel-1 is being developed by the former Mellanox team. Mellanox Techonolgies, the Israeli chip designer, was bought by Nvidia in 2019.
Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) were central to the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI). Microsoft invested billions of dollars in Nvidia, as it needed thousands of Nvidia GPUs to train its popular ChatGPT application with masses of information.
Israel-1’s announcement comes shortly after Grace, a supercomputer in Bristol. The chip maker partnered up with Bristol University to create the computer called Isambard 3.
According to Nvidia, the supercomputer in Bristol will assist in scientific research including drug discovery and climate change.
Grace CPU began to be shipped by Nvidia earlier this year.
GlobalData is the parent company of Verdict and its sister publications.
