IBM/NVIDIA Launch Linux-Based Servers For Machine Learning

International Business Machines Corporation (NYSE:IBM) has launched a new lineup of Linux-based servers that it built in collaboration with NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) . The servers have been specifically designed to speed up artificial intelligence, advanced analytics and machine learning as well as to boost the efficiency of data centers.

What’s Powering the Servers?

The new lineup of servers is powered by two IBM Power8 CPUs along with four Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) P100 GPU accelerators manufactured by NVIDIA. The reason behind the high speed performance of these servers is that they also use NVIDIA’s NVLink high-speed interface, which acts as a bridge between the CPU and GPU. This enables faster communication than a common PCIe bus found on a desktop computer. The Power8 CPU comes with in-built support to connect with the NVLink interface.

Performance Wise

According to IBM, the new servers are capable of achieving a whopping 21 teraflops of computing speed. That’s a 14% increase in computing power in comparison to a regular desktop computer having a PCIe slot.

Our Take

Given the time factor involved in machine learning, the new servers are expected to play a pivotal role by substantially speeding up the process.

Moreover, IBM and NVIDIA have developed this technology incorporating some innovations of the OpenPOWER community that aims at developing technology that delivers enhanced performance. We believe that this association will help the company to bring in newer and better technologies to the market in the future.

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

At present, IBM carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Some better-ranked stocks in the broader technology space are NCR Corporation (NYSE:NCR) and VASCO Data Security International Inc. (NASDAQ:VDSI) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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