First phase of deployment will double UPenn’s processing capacity.
US data center operator Flexential has announced the phased deployment of an Nvidia DGX SuperPOD to support the launch of the University of Pennsylvania's (UPenn) new Penn Advanced Research Computing Center (PARCC).
Comprising DGX B200 systems and an Nvidia Quantum-2 InfiniBand network solution, the system will be housed at Flexential's data center in Collegeville, Pennsylvania.
In a statement, Flexential said the deployment would support PARCC's high-density infrastructure requirements, adding that the facility had been designed to meet the performance and efficiency demands of large-scale AI and high-performance computing workloads and certified as part of the Nvidia DGX-Ready Data Center program.
Phase I of the deployment will see PARCC double UPenn's processing capacity, with the infrastructure design including hot data storage colocation to increase data transfer speeds and cost efficiency, which Flexential says will provide real-time capacity expansion during peak usage.
Enterprise IT services provider Ahead was responsible for the off-site rack integration and on-site cabling, delivering pre-configured racks to the facility in order to reduce setup time and installation complexity.
"This collaboration between Flexential, UPenn, Ahead, and Nvidia showcases how research computing is being reshaped with flexible, high-performance infrastructure," said Jack Wells, director of higher education and research computing at Nvidia. "Leveraging Nvidia DGX B200 systems with Nvidia Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking allows organizations to scale compute resources dynamically and support a wide range of AI workloads, from advancing academic discovery to innovation in commercial settings."
Located 25 miles northwest of UPenn's campus in Philadelphia, Flexential's Collegeville data center offers 7.2MW of capacity across the 203,705 sq ft (18,925 sqm) site. The company said the facility has built-in liquid cooling capabilities and maintains 100 percent service-level agreements on power, cooling, network, and bandwidth, and delivers more than 1,500 watts per square foot.
Earlier this month, Flexential announced it had acquired two data centers it was previously leasing in Atlanta, Georgia - Douglasville 2 and Norcross.
GI formed Flexential in 2017 after merging Peak 10 and ViaWest. GI acquired Peak 10 back in 2014. Morgan Stanley is also an investor. Today, Flexential operates 40 data centers across 18 US markets and has more than 330MW of built and under-development capacity.
