What’s new: IBM and Intel have announced a collaboration to deliver Intel® Gaudi® 3 AI accelerators as a service on IBM Cloud. Expected to be available in early 2025, this offering is designed to help scale enterprise AI more cost-effectively and drive innovation built on security and resiliency. This collaboration will also enable support for Gaudi 3 within IBM’s Watsonx AI and data platform. IBM Cloud is the first cloud service provider (CSP) to launch Gaudi 3, and the offering will be available for both hybrid and on-premises environments.

“Realizing the full potential of AI requires an open and collaborative ecosystem that provides customers with choice and accessible solutions,” said Justin Hotard, executive vice president and general manager of Intel Data Center and AI. “By integrating Gaudi 3 AI accelerators and Xeon CPUs into the IBM Cloud, we are creating new AI capabilities and meeting the demand for affordable, secure and innovative AI computing solutions.”

Why it is important: ​While generative AI has the potential to accelerate transformation, the compute power required underscores the importance of availability, performance, cost, energy efficiency and security as top priorities for enterprises. Through this collaboration, Intel and IBM aim to reduce the total cost of ownership to leverage and scale AI while improving performance. Gaudi 3, integrated with 5th Gen Xeon, supports enterprise AI workloads in the cloud and data centers, providing customers with visibility and control over their software stack and simplifying workload and application management. IBM Cloud and Gaudi 3 aim to help customers scale enterprise AI workloads more cost-effectively while prioritizing performance, security and resiliency.

For generative AI inference workloads, IBM plans to enable support for Gaudi 3 within IBM’s watsonx AI and data platform. This will provide watsonx customers with additional AI infrastructure resources to scale their AI workloads across hybrid cloud environments, optimizing the price/performance of model inference.

“IBM is committed to helping our clients drive innovation in AI and hybrid cloud by offering solutions that meet their business needs. Our commitment to security and resiliency with IBM Cloud has helped advance IBM’s hybrid cloud and AI strategy for our enterprise clients,” said Alan Peacock, GM of IBM Cloud. “By leveraging Intel’s Gaudi 3 accelerators on IBM Cloud, our clients gain access to a flexible enterprise AI solution aimed at optimizing cost performance. We are unlocking potential new AI business opportunities designed for clients to test, innovate and deploy AI inference solutions more cost-effectively.”

This is how it works: IBM and Intel are working together to help customers across all industries, including highly regulated ones, leverage IBM Cloud’s security and compliance capabilities to deliver a Gaudi 3 service and make AI more accessible to enterprises.

• Scalability and flexibility: IBM Cloud and Intel offer scalable and flexible solutions that enable customers to adjust their computing resources as needed, potentially leading to cost savings and operational efficiencies.
• Improved performance and security: By integrating Gaudi 3 with IBM Cloud Virtual Servers for VPC, x86-based enterprises can run applications faster and more securely than before the integration, resulting in an improved user experience.​

What’s next: Intel and IBM have a long history of working together, from developing the IBM PC to creating enterprise AI solutions with Gaudi 3. IBM Cloud with Gaudi 3 offerings will be generally available in early 2025. Stay tuned for more updates from Intel and IBM in the coming months.

For more information about Intel Gaudi 3 accelerators, visit: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/details/processors/ai-accelerators/gaudi3.html

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