Xtreme Compute Technologies XCT

By Nicole Hemsoth

February 7, 2011

Let’s begin – Why don’t you provide some background on XCT, who you are and what it is you set out to accomplish?

XCT was founded by HPC Industry veterans whose primary mission is to further the adoption of Innovative Technologies that will advance the adoption of GPU’s, FPGA’s and SSD’s amongst other truly transformational technologies as they relate to accelerating the pace of discovery in the demanding HPC environment.

We believe these technologies are leading to a further democratization of HPC by making these tools available and accessible to broader constituencies of researchers across a wide spectrum of disciplines and verticals. We are fortunate to be witnessing this revolution in HPC and, as the wide scale propagation of these technologies increases, we will see a flowering of creativity that was simply unimaginable just a few short years ago.

Specifically, what products do you currently have or offer that will aide in fulfilling that mission?

First off, we view our innovative product offering as the vehicle for driving to the fulfillment and realization of our mission and vision.

The core platform is encompassed in our “BriX” family of PCIe expansion chassis. Our BriX chassis offer a number of configuration and device options that provide the right balance of devices for deployment in solving a specific problem set. The advantage of the BriX architecture is that we can mix and match devices to achieve a problem specific, purpose built, and application specific solution

For example, our a-BriX can be outfitted with the full range of NVIDIA Tesla GPU’s, from 10 Series to the full line of Fermi 2050 and 2070. Our r-BriX can likewise be configured with a variety of FGPA devices and our v-BriX, can be configured with the full complement of Quadro class GPU’s for visualization applications. Our forthcoming s-BriX will offer configurations with industry leading SSD cards where extremely high data transfer speeds are a must.

What are the key differentiators of your BriX offering vis-a-vis the competition such as the NVIDIA “S” class GPU servers?

There are three key areas where XCT differentiates from what is currently available in the market, namely Flexibility, Serviceability and Upgradability. Flexibility, as we’ve previously stated, gives us the ability to mix and match devices within a single chassis resulting in a truly purpose-built solution fined tuned to the target application set. Serviceability, our BriX chassis are field serviceable and are delivered with a 3 year onsite service contract which eliminates the need for an entire chassis replacement, thereby increasing uptime and availability. Upgradability allows for a level of investment protection in the rapidly evolving accelerator market not currently available from competing vendors.

What product enhancements do you foresee in the near future for XCT’s roadmap?

XCT is in the process of finalizing a new, higher density, more modular design capable of supporting 8 and 16 devices in a new “hot swappable” canister design allowing for device swapping “on the fly”. Most importantly, our next generation chassis will be based on PCIe, Gen 3 which will provide for substantially higher throughput and will be ready for the next generation of PCIe devices such as those from NVIDIA and thus continuing our emphasis on investment protection and future proofing not found in competitive products. These new products and enhancements are expected to ship in the second quarter of this year. Dynamic reassignment of device resources is another significant enhancement we’ll be talking about in more detail in the near future.

What other products do you offer outside the BriX product platforms, if any?

We are currently in the process of shipping our latest offering, our 8 Fermi GPU “Reality Engine” platform purpose built to provide the ideal platform for NVIDIA’s Reality Server. The Reality Engine is available as a 4u Data Center solution or as well as the industries densest and quietest GPU workstation operating with a full 8 Fermi GPU’s at under 45 db. We will also be bringing the industries highest density heterogeneous blade infrastructure to market later in the calendar quarter!

What validation have you received from your partners for your innovative approach?

Sure here you go….

“As our newest Tesla Preferred Partner, XCT brings a wealth of experience in the HPC market and a product line up that delivers a great deal of flexibility for its customers,” said Andy Keane, General Manager, Tesla business at NVIDIA. “Equipped with our newly data center certified Tesla C-­-class processors, XCT’s solutions address the rapidly expanding community of developers leveraging the GPU for HPC and scientific computing.”

“XCT and PNY are partnering to bring together the advantages of the new Fermi based NVIDIA Quadro multi GPU capabilities within the XCT family of compute solutions. Featuring CUDA, OpenGL 4.1 hardware acceleration, ECC and fast double precision, these new high performance compute solutions are ideal for XCT clients”
— Jeff Medeiros, Director of Marketing and Business Development, PNY Technologies.

“XCT brings a seasoned team of HPC experts who have recognized the persistent role that co-processors such as GPU’s and FPGA’s are playing and will continue to play in the HPC market.” said Dr. Vincent Natoli, President of Stone Ridge Technology. “The r-BriX line of products uses our latest FPGA hardware and will have a dramatic impact on performance for applications in Bioinformatics, Financial feed processing and National Intelligence.

For additional information about XCT, please visit www.xtremecompute.com or contact them at [email protected].

Subscribe to HPCwire's Weekly Update!

Be the most informed person in the room! Stay ahead of the tech trends with industry updates delivered to you every week!

MLPerf Inference 4.0 Results Showcase GenAI; Nvidia Still Dominates

March 28, 2024

There were no startling surprises in the latest MLPerf Inference benchmark (4.0) results released yesterday. Two new workloads — Llama 2 and Stable Diffusion XL — were added to the benchmark suite as MLPerf continues Read more…

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing power it brings to artificial intelligence.  Nvidia's DGX Read more…

Call for Participation in Workshop on Potential NSF CISE Quantum Initiative

March 26, 2024

Editor’s Note: Next month there will be a workshop to discuss what a quantum initiative led by NSF’s Computer, Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate could entail. The details are posted below in a Ca Read more…

Waseda U. Researchers Reports New Quantum Algorithm for Speeding Optimization

March 25, 2024

Optimization problems cover a wide range of applications and are often cited as good candidates for quantum computing. However, the execution time for constrained combinatorial optimization applications on quantum device Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at the network layer threatens to make bigger and brawnier pro Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HBM3E memory as well as the the ability to train 1 trillion pa Read more…

MLPerf Inference 4.0 Results Showcase GenAI; Nvidia Still Dominates

March 28, 2024

There were no startling surprises in the latest MLPerf Inference benchmark (4.0) results released yesterday. Two new workloads — Llama 2 and Stable Diffusion Read more…

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing po Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HB Read more…

Nvidia Looks to Accelerate GenAI Adoption with NIM

March 19, 2024

Today at the GPU Technology Conference, Nvidia launched a new offering aimed at helping customers quickly deploy their generative AI applications in a secure, s Read more…

The Generative AI Future Is Now, Nvidia’s Huang Says

March 19, 2024

We are in the early days of a transformative shift in how business gets done thanks to the advent of generative AI, according to Nvidia CEO and cofounder Jensen Read more…

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, codenamed Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. Wh Read more…

Alibaba Shuts Down its Quantum Computing Effort

November 30, 2023

In case you missed it, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has shut down its quantum computing research effort. It’s not entirely clear what drove the change. Read more…

Nvidia H100: Are 550,000 GPUs Enough for This Year?

August 17, 2023

The GPU Squeeze continues to place a premium on Nvidia H100 GPUs. In a recent Financial Times article, Nvidia reports that it expects to ship 550,000 of its lat Read more…

Shutterstock 1285747942

AMD’s Horsepower-packed MI300X GPU Beats Nvidia’s Upcoming H200

December 7, 2023

AMD and Nvidia are locked in an AI performance battle – much like the gaming GPU performance clash the companies have waged for decades. AMD has claimed it Read more…

DoD Takes a Long View of Quantum Computing

December 19, 2023

Given the large sums tied to expensive weapon systems – think $100-million-plus per F-35 fighter – it’s easy to forget the U.S. Department of Defense is a Read more…

Synopsys Eats Ansys: Does HPC Get Indigestion?

February 8, 2024

Recently, it was announced that Synopsys is buying HPC tool developer Ansys. Started in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1970 as Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc. (SASI) by John Swanson (and eventually renamed), Ansys serves the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)/multiphysics engineering simulation market. Read more…

Choosing the Right GPU for LLM Inference and Training

December 11, 2023

Accelerating the training and inference processes of deep learning models is crucial for unleashing their true potential and NVIDIA GPUs have emerged as a game- Read more…

Intel’s Server and PC Chip Development Will Blur After 2025

January 15, 2024

Intel's dealing with much more than chip rivals breathing down its neck; it is simultaneously integrating a bevy of new technologies such as chiplets, artificia Read more…

Baidu Exits Quantum, Closely Following Alibaba’s Earlier Move

January 5, 2024

Reuters reported this week that Baidu, China’s giant e-commerce and services provider, is exiting the quantum computing development arena. Reuters reported � Read more…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

Comparing NVIDIA A100 and NVIDIA L40S: Which GPU is Ideal for AI and Graphics-Intensive Workloads?

October 30, 2023

With long lead times for the NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs, many organizations are looking at the new NVIDIA L40S GPU, which it’s a new GPU optimized for AI and g Read more…

Shutterstock 1179408610

Google Addresses the Mysteries of Its Hypercomputer 

December 28, 2023

When Google launched its Hypercomputer earlier this month (December 2023), the first reaction was, "Say what?" It turns out that the Hypercomputer is Google's t Read more…

AMD MI3000A

How AMD May Get Across the CUDA Moat

October 5, 2023

When discussing GenAI, the term "GPU" almost always enters the conversation and the topic often moves toward performance and access. Interestingly, the word "GPU" is assumed to mean "Nvidia" products. (As an aside, the popular Nvidia hardware used in GenAI are not technically... Read more…

Shutterstock 1606064203

Meta’s Zuckerberg Puts Its AI Future in the Hands of 600,000 GPUs

January 25, 2024

In under two minutes, Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, laid out the company's AI plans, which included a plan to build an artificial intelligence system with the eq Read more…

Google Introduces ‘Hypercomputer’ to Its AI Infrastructure

December 11, 2023

Google ran out of monikers to describe its new AI system released on December 7. Supercomputer perhaps wasn't an apt description, so it settled on Hypercomputer Read more…

China Is All In on a RISC-V Future

January 8, 2024

The state of RISC-V in China was discussed in a recent report released by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The report, entitled "E Read more…

Intel Won’t Have a Xeon Max Chip with New Emerald Rapids CPU

December 14, 2023

As expected, Intel officially announced its 5th generation Xeon server chips codenamed Emerald Rapids at an event in New York City, where the focus was really o Read more…

IBM Quantum Summit: Two New QPUs, Upgraded Qiskit, 10-year Roadmap and More

December 4, 2023

IBM kicks off its annual Quantum Summit today and will announce a broad range of advances including its much-anticipated 1121-qubit Condor QPU, a smaller 133-qu Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire