At Computex 2022, NVIDIA gave a number of updates for its data center portfolio. We had the roadmap update. NVIDIA also discussed its go-to-market model with Grace Superchip and Grace Hopper. More immediately, NVIDIA is embracing liquid cooling and has its Jetson Orin coming with new production form factors.
NVIDIA Data Center Roadmap Computex 2022
We have seen many of these before, but NVIDIA is working to keep cadence with its GPU and DPU products, while introducing CPUs as well.
Later in 2022 we expect the BlueField-3 DPU, as well as the NVIDIA H100 that is codenamed Hopper. Here is what one of the new H100’s looks like as a physical product not just a rendering.
We expect the NVIDIA H100 to start shipping later in 2022, but for the A100 to last in the market for quite some time. If you want to see more of the actual cards, see Checking out the NVIDIA H100 in Our First Look at Hopper.
NVIDIA Grace Hopper and Grace Superchip
The NVIDIA Grace Superchip is coming in 2023 along with the Grace-Hopper. Grace is the NVIDIA Arm CPU with LPDDR5 for memory. The NVIDIA Grace-Hopper is the Arm CPU plus H100 combination. The Grace Superchip takes two of these Arm CPUs and puts them onto a module.
As part of the announcement, NVIDIA has a number of reference designs for Grace-based systems. Beyond that, NVIDIA will have reference platforms and even sell some designs like half-width nodes that can be used in servers.
NVIDIA will use these reference designs to make it easier for more companies to sell the new Arm servers. NVIDIA said that it still plans to sell the x86 servers as those are the vast majority of sales, but it needs to work on the Arm ecosystem to get it going. Also, we learned that in the half-width nodes the GPU nodes with Grace-Hopper are only two nodes in 2U. For the Grace-Grace nodes that are expected to be a 500W TDP card, these are single socket nodes, albeit with two Grace CPUs in that single socket with the 900Gbps link between them.
We also learned that NVIDIA will sell Grace CPUs with varied core counts and memory amounts to create a SKU stack, but it will not be enormous stacks like the current Xeon stacks.
NVIDIA Liquid Cooling
On liquid cooling, NVIDIA announced some new products, as well as products that many STH readers may already think are announced. Aside from the HGX A100 solutions that are already shipping in liquid and air-cooled versions, NVIDIA will start shipping the A100 PCIe liquid-cooled versions starting in Q3 2022. The NVIDIA H100 PCIe will also have a liquid cooled version. Both PCIe liquid-cooled cards have the benefit of better cooling as well as being only a single slot instead of a dual-slot solution. We learned that the nozzles are included so OEMs will have to integrate tubing and quick disconnect fittings to NVIDIA’s nozzles even if they use other systems in their servers.
The product that was featured prominently in the NVIDIA GTC 2022 Keynote but that we were later told was an unannounced product is the NVIDIA HGX H100 liquid-cooled platform. This is now an announced product, but NVIDIA has not announced the DGX H100 liquid-cooled. NVIDIA showed the DGX H100 with the liquid-cooled HGX H100 in the GTC 2022 keynote, but it is not an announced product. As of now, it is only the HGX H100 liquid-cooled for OEMs to integrate.
If that seems like splitting hairs, it is. Most casual observers can imagine what NVIDIA is going to do with its DGX and liquid cooling at this point. It is just not announced.
Liquid cooling is a major trend, so it is time to start thinking about it if you have not already and are interested in high-end chips. If you want to see an explanation of how direct to chip liquid cooling works, check out:
We also check out Liquid Cooling Next-Gen Servers Getting Hands-on with 3 Options.
This has been a focus for STH for some time now, and we have more coming.
NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin
On the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin, we got a number of new platforms and updates on production.
The NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin will be available in July 2022 in the lower-cost and performance 32GB module. The 12 core 64GB module will follow in October 2022. There will also be an Orin NX module with 8 cores/ 16GB (September) and 6 cores/ 8GB (December.) Prices will range from $399 to $1599 for the production modules.
A number of OEMs have announced edge products with the new chips. We looked at a previous generation solution in our Advantech MIC-730AI Review NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier AI Edge Appliance with a fun AI demo.
Still, the new NVIDIA Orin kits are huge steps up from the previous generation Xavier cards.
Final Words
Overall, there are quite a bit of new items here. Many of the things that we saw at GTC 2022 are getting more details. Still, it feels a bit like we are patiently waiting late 2022 and early 2023 for the next generation at this point.
We will have more NVIDIA coverage from ISC 2022 next week.
