Alice Chambers |
Microsoft and Nvidia have announced new solutions that combine Nvidia’s generative artificial intelligence and Omniverse technologies with the capabilities of Microsoft Azure services.
“Microsoft and Nvidia are bringing the power of the Nvidia Grace Blackwell 200 (GB200) Superchip to Microsoft Azure,” said Rani Borkar, corporate vice president of Azure Hardware Systems and Infrastructure at Microsoft, in a recent blog post. “The GB200 is a new processor designed specifically for large-scale generative AI workloads, data processing and high performance workloads, featuring up to a massive 16 TBs of memory bandwidth and up to an estimated 45 times the inference on trillion parameter models relative to the previous Hopper generation of servers.”
The Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs) are trained on Azure AI infrastructure and are designed to handle the latest large language models.
The two GPUs on the GB200 are trained on Azure AI (image credit: Nvidia)
Microsoft will bring GB200-based instances to Azure to support its customers and AI services. “Azure customers will be able to use GB200 Superchip to create and deploy state-of-the-art AI solutions that can handle massive amounts of data and complexity, while accelerating time to market,” said Borkar.
Microsoft has also made the Azure NC H100 v5 VM series generally available. The NC series, based on the Nvidia H100 NVL platform, allows customers to partition each GPU into up to seven instances, providing flexibility and scalability for diverse AI workloads.
“AI is transforming our daily lives – opening up a world of new opportunities,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia. “Through our collaboration with Microsoft, we’re building a future that unlocks the promise of AI for customers, helping them deliver innovative solutions to the world.”
Huang discussed the new solutions at Nvidia’s GTC AI Conference (image credit: Nvidia)
Furthermore, the combination of Azure with Nvidia DGX Cloud and the Nvidia Clara suite of microservices aim to improve efficiency in the healthcare and life sciences industry. Plus, manufacturers will have access to Nvidia Omniverse Cloud APIs on Azure later this year, which enables developers to bring increased data interoperability collaboration and physics-based visualisation to existing software applications.
“Together with Nvidia, we are making the promise of AI real, helping drive new benefits and productivity gains for people and organizations everywhere,” said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO of Microsoft. “From bringing the GB200 processor to Azure, to new integrations between DGX Cloud and Microsoft Fabric, the announcements we are making today will ensure customers have the most comprehensive platforms and tools across every layer of the Copilot stack, from silicon to software, to build their own breakthrough AI capability.”