Hatfields and McCoys. Lakers and Celtics. GIF versus GIF. The rivalries of our time are always storied. One of the biggest seems to be cooling, however. AMD and Intel have announced a new partnership aimed at countering the surge of ARM-based designs. The companies are trying to standardize aspects of the x86 instruction set in order to make it easier for ISVs to write code that runs on both Intel and AMD chips without a fragmented code base that reduces performance and encourages developers to move to a more unified architecture like ARM. This and more on this week’s Gestalt IT Rundown.
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1:41 – Platform9 Launches Private Cloud Director
Platform9 has a new solution for private clouds. Private Cloud Director helps you build solutions that run on any infrastructure using distributed software defined networking (SDN) and cluster resource management. The details were shown during Cloud Field Day 21 as well as demos of the platform.
Watch Platform9’s Videos: Platform9 Presents at Cloud Field Day 21
5:45 – xAI Builds The Biggest AI Supercomputer
There’s a new big dog in the AI supercomputer space and it DOESN’T run on InfiniBand. xAI’s Colossus is powered by 100,000 NVIDIA Grace Hopper GPUs, with plans to double that number. It took 122 days to design Colossus and only 19 days to install all the racks and get to the training. How can you run a massive project like this without InfiniBand? Well that’s thanks to Spectrum-X Ethernet, the custom AI-focused version developed by NVIDIA. The core of the xAI Spectrum-X network runs at 800Gbps and is used to feed systems running the Bluefield-3 DPU in order to accelerate performance.
Read More: NVIDIA Ethernet Networking Accelerates World’s Largest AI Supercomputer, Built by xAI
9:53 – Evading Sanctions for Profit
With AI becoming a hot new area for chip manufacturers to make a mountain of money, everyone wants to get in on the action. One of the ways that companies are skirting the rules to keep the money machine going is by adjusting technology to evade export restrictions. As we’ve covered on the Rundown many times, the US is restricting export of certain types of chips and chipmaking tools to China. That doesn’t mean people aren’t trying to get around it. Companies facing export bans are using creative interpretations of the rules to evade sanctions and importing large numbers of chips through shell companies.
Read More: Fab Whack-A-Mole: Chinese Companies are Evading U.S. Sanctions
15:34 – Satya Nadella Takes Pay Cut for Security Issues
It’s been a bad year for Microsoft on the security front. Between all the email compromises and password spraying attacks the tech giant has gotten a black eye. It’s so bad that Satya Nadella released a memo stating that employee pay would be lined to security expectations and milestones in some cases. And one of those cases appears to be his. In a new filing with the SEC, Nadella has asked the Microsoft board to reduce his incentives by 50%. Granted, he’s only losing about $5.5 million but it’s a step in the right direction.
Read More: UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
19:06 – OpenAI in Talks with Broadcom for Custom Chips
OpenAI is reportedly in talks with Broadcom to develop AI chips that are specific to OpenAI inferencing models according to a Bloomberg report. The people sourced in the reporting also mentioned that OpenAI is talking to TSMC for custom chips as well. The move would be a big shift away from using GPU-based models like the ones favored by NVIDIA. Stocks for both companies rose on the news.
Read More: OpenAI, Broadcom Working to Develop AI Inference Chip
24:13 – Salt Typhoon Sweeps Up Political Audio
Earlier this month we discussed the hacking group Salt Typhoon and how they had gained access to lawful intercept recording data in major US telecom companies. During that story we discussed the far-reaching impact of intelligence gathering. This week we saw reports that Salt Typhoon has been gathering data on US politicians, including Donald Trump, JD Vance, and other parts of their campaign. The group has also compromised devices for politicans on the other side of the political spectrum, including Chuck Schumer.
Read More: Chinese Hackers said to have collected audio of American Calls
28:40 – AMD and Intel Reach Historic Partnership
Hatfields and McCoys. Lakers and Celtics. GIF versus GIF. The rivalries of our time are always storied. One of the biggest seems to be cooling, however. AMD and Intel have announced a new partnership aimed at countering the surge of ARM-based designs. The companies are trying to standardize aspects of the x86 instruction set in order to make it easier for ISVs to write code that runs on both Intel and AMD chips without a fragmented code base that reduces performance and encourages developers to move to a more unified architecture like ARM.
Read More: Collaborations and Innovations in Tech – A Recap from The Six Five Webcast
Read More: Hell Freezes Over as AMD and Intel Come Together for x86
41:08 – The Weeks Ahead
Networking Field Day 36 – November 6 – 7
AppDev Field Day 2 – November 12 – 13
Mobility Field Day 12 – November 20 – 21
Gestalt IT and Tech Field Day are now part of The Futurum Group.
The Gestalt IT Rundown is your look at the IT news of the week. Be sure to subscribe to Gestalt IT on YouTube for even more weekly video content.
