Elon Musk's xAI supercomputer in Memphis seeks to beat ORNL's Frontier. What will it take?
TVA is working with Elon Musk's AI company to figure out how much electricity its new supercomputer would need. Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, is aiming to become the world's largest supercomputer with its "gigafactory of compute" in Memphis. The project, announced by the Greater Memphis Chamber, is the largest for a new-to-market company in Memphis history. Frontier, which has taken the No. 1 spot on the Top500 list five times in a row, broke the exascale barrier in May 2022 and is set to open for use by scientists worldwide in April 2023. The deal between xAI and Memphis leaders was made in less than 90 days and is pending approval by several governing bodies, including the Tennessee Valley Authority. The energy consumption of xAI's supercomputer, Frontier, is expected to be higher, with environmental groups urging customers to consider energy costs.
نشرت : من 3 اسابيع بواسطة Daniel Dassow, Knoxville News Sentinel في Tech
Elon Musk's xAI supercomputer in Memphis seeks to beat ORNL's Frontier. What will it take?
Elon Musk has aspirations to unseat Frontier, Oak Ridge National Laboratory's pride and joy, as the world's largest supercomputer with his "gigafactory of compute" in Memphis. He has billions to make it happen.
Frontier has taken the No. 1 spot on the Top500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers five times in a row since it broke the exascale barrier – over one billion calculations per second – in May 2022. The system opened for use by scientists across the world in April 2023.
ORNL is not involved in the project for xAI, Musk's artificial intelligence company, which the Greater Memphis Chamber announced June 5. The multibillion-dollar investment is the largest for a new-to-market company in Memphis history, said chamber President and CEO Ted Townsend.
Details on the supercomputing project are sparse, including the price tag and how many jobs it will create. The deal between xAI and Memphis leaders was made in less than 90 days. It is still pending approval by several governing bodies, including the Tennessee Valley Authority, which would produce electricity to meet the project's high demand.
Musk told investors in May that xAI's supercomputer would be powered by a whopping 100,000 flagship Nvidia AI graphics processing units, or GPUs, reported first by The Information. Frontier contains around 37,000 GPUs made by AMD.
Musk wants xAI's supercomputer running by fall 2025 to train the next version of the company's chatbot model, Grok.
xAI is racing against other AI developers like OpenAI and such established tech giants as Google, Microsoft and Meta. In a sign that he intends to accelerate the competition, Musk told Nvidia to divert thousands of processors ordered for Tesla to his closely connected companies X and xAI instead, CNBC reported.
Taking the No. 1 spot from Frontier is no small task on that path, even for the man behind Tesla and SpaceX. ORNL scientists describe Frontier as being "like a miracle." Frontier and Summit, the No. 1 and No. 9 fastest supercomputers, both have helped tech companies train AI models.
Here's what it would take to outgrow Frontier.
How big is Frontier, the world's fastest supercomputer?
Size and speed go hand in hand for supercomputers, said Arjun Shankar, director of the National Center for Computational Sciences at ORNL.
A bigger computer is a sign of speed, but the system must be built so that it can successfully run a test program in a certain time.
"If you build a larger and larger machine, it is true that if you design it well and are able to get this program to run on that computer in that time, you can get a faster and faster computer," Shankar told Knox News.
Frontier was the first computer to reach over 1 billion calculations in a second. It's also massive, clocking in at 296 tons across 74 giant cabinets. It is made of 60 million individual parts and was built by Hewlett Packard Enterprise using chips made by AMD.
One major problem for Frontier, and one that xAI will need to address, is energy consumption. Initial estimates for Frontier suggested it would suck up the same amount of power as a mid-size U.S. city. Without a breakthrough in energy efficiency, it would have cost $600 million per year to keep the machine running, according to the lab. That's how much Frontier cost to build.
By cooling Frontier with water rather than air − and using GPUs, which create lightning-fast video game visuals − the lab's scientists and engineers were able to make Frontier much more energy efficient than expected. It is no. 11 on the list of the world's greenest supercomputers.
Still, the computer's power consumption is up to 30 megawatts at full operation – enough for nearly 18,000 homes – and it pumps about 6,000 gallons of water through the system each minute.
Estimates for xAI's supercomputer are likely to be higher.
Three Memphis environmental groups released a joint statement urging TVA and Memphis Light, Gas and Water to consider energy costs to customers and ensure the "gigafactory of compute" does not lead to power outages or rolling blackouts.
TVA working with xAI to figure out electricity needs
A former appliance manufacturing site is the presumed location for xAI's Memphis facility, though the location was not announced for global security concerns.
The 785,000-square-foot former Electrolux facility is just more than a mile from TVA's Allen Combined Cycle Plant, a natural gas plant that replaced a former coal plant.
One of TVA's core missions, apart from generating electricity, is attracting companies to Tennessee with relatively cheap power.
The nation's largest public power provider has been working with Memphis Light, Water and Gas and xAI to review the details of the company's proposal and how much electricity it will need, TVA spokesperson Scott Brooks told Knox News via email. The discussions involve how the companies will respond when power demand surges in Memphis to reduce strain on the grid.
"As West Tennessee and the entire region continues to grow, our commitment is to ensure that we continue to deliver affordable, reliable energy to all customers," Brooks said.
TVA is familiar with powering large companies in Memphis, home to AutoZone, FedEx and St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. The federal utility has 60 large directly served customers, including ORNL.
Daniel Dassow is a growth and development reporter focused on technology and energy. Phone 423-637-0878. Email [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Elon Musk's xAI vs. ORNL's Frontier: Battle for No. 1 supercomputer
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