According to the company, customers can expect breakthrough performance improvement at low latency when running key data centre applications like real-time machine learning inference as well as video processing, genomics, and data analytics, among others.
The Alveo U200 and U250 are powered by the Xilinx UltraScale+ FPGA and like all Xilinx technology, customers will be able to reconfigure the hardware, enabling them to optimise for shifting workloads, new standards and updated algorithms without incurring replacement costs.
Alveo accelerator cards are said to deliver significant performance advantages over a broad set of applications, according to Xilinx. For machine learning, the Alveo U250 increases real-time inference throughput by 20X versus high-end CPUs, and more than 4X for sub-two-millisecond low-latency applications versus fixed-function accelerators like high-end GPUs.
Moreover, Alveo accelerator cards reduce latency by 3X versus GPUs, providing a significant advantage when running real-time inference applications.
Alveo is supported by an ecosystem of partners and OEMs who have developed and qualified key applications in AI/ML, video transcoding, data analytics, financial risk modelling, security, and genomics. In addition, a group of leading OEMs are collaborating with Xilinx to qualify multiple server SKUs with Alveo accelerator cards including Dell EMC, Fujitsu Limited and IBM with more to come.
“The launch of Alveo accelerator cards further advances Xilinx’s transformation into a platform company, enabling a growing ecosystem of application partners that can now innovate faster than ever before,” said Manish Muthal, vice president, data centre, Xilinx. “We are seeing strong customer interest in Alveo accelerators and are delighted to partner with our application ecosystem to deliver production-deployable solutions based on Alveo to our customers.”
