NEW YORK: Typically, when people hear the term supercomputer, they think of big machines that are covered with blinking lights and that eat up a lot of energy and space. But thanks to a new breakthrough from the American tech giant NVIDIA, this perception will be changed completely.
NVIDIA has developed the DGX Spark, the world’s smallest supercomputer, which is approximately the size of a book. The DGX Spark packs an incredible amount of power and performance, a fact that makes it the first one to come to mind when thinking of the traditional supercomputers that weigh a lot and consume the energy of several households.
It has been reported that the DGX Spark a product that carries a price tag of around $4,000 was a gift from NVIDIA to Tesla CEO Elon Musk. It sports unified CPU and GPU RAM of 128GB, NVIDIA ConnectX networking, and the company’s advanced Blackwell Superchip that is petaflop-level capable.
The DGX Spark is barely over one kilogram in weight, and it operates with NVIDIA’s own DGX OS. Apart from that, the device is equipped with an extensive array of connectivity options: four USB-C ports, one HDMI port, one Ethernet port, and two QSFP ports that are usually found in high-speed servers and AI supercomputers.
In its day, a Cray supercomputer used 60 miles of wiring, weighed over five tons, and needed the power of 10 homes to function and the whole process of installation took a year. While the DGX Spark is a desktop-friendly device and is also quiet in operation.
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Such an invention is a big step towards the era of small, energy-saving, and powerful computers, thus the future of portable AI giants is secured.
