Intel® Gaudi® 3 AI accelerator brings a fresh choice to open GenAI solutions

This article was co-authored by Matt Halcomb, Principal Architect, Global Solutions Development at World Wide Technology and Milind S. Pandit, Director, DCAI Technical Sales at Intel. 

The demand for ever-more-advanced computing solutions to support generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is exploding, fueled by "ChatGPT fever." As a result, organizations require faster, more energy-efficient, specialized hardware solutions to handle these sophisticated and demanding applications and workflows.

Even those organizations that are able to meet today's compute demands will soon have to scale up their capabilities, either by refreshing hardware or expanding data centers, to support future requirements. And that's assuming their IT infrastructure is open and scalable to accommodate tomorrow's innovations.

To power GenAI, the default answer over the years was to deploy GPUs at scale, which perform well but come with a variety of trade-offs and challenges.  Now, World Wide Technology (WWT) ecosystem ally Intel has introduced another acceleration option: the Intel® Gaudi® 3 AI accelerator. This technology offers a fresh alternative for supporting GenAI, with the performance, power and scalability needed to help realize generative AI's full potential, all while functioning efficiently and cost-effectively.

Purpose-built for AI acceleration

Launched in October 2024, the Intel Gaudi 3 AI accelerator is the culmination of Intel's years of developmental focus on AI. Working in collaboration with WWT, it represents the latest in a suite of Intel® technologies we bring together as AI solutions to support customers in unlocking better business outcomes.

Different from a GPU or CPU, Intel Gaudi 3 AI accelerator is its own category of acceleration device, purpose-built and optimized to speed training and inference for large-scale GenAI functions. . It achieves a significant performance advantage over its previous generation through a new manufacturing process that packs more transistors onto the chip to improve energy efficiency.

The result: benefits that include superior per-watt performance, with the compute power, memory bandwidth and flexibility needed for AI, all at a significant cost savings.

Intel® Gaudi® 3 AI accelerator brings choice to powering GenAI

As new and diverse applications for artificial intelligence arise far and wide, it's clear that powering AI will require more than a one-size-fits-all approach. Organizations want flexibility, with the freedom to choose a multi-vendor, multi-OEM solution, embracing innovation wherever it appears while scaling for the future. The Intel Gaudi 3 AI accelerator enables that choice by offering:

• An available, flexible alternative to GPUs – Sometimes choosing a GPU to power AI can result in lock-in to a proprietary networking technology and software. Or, there could be supply chain issues that leave you waiting many months to obtain the latest GPU technology. Intel Gaudi 3 AI accelerators can provide the same function with far greater product availability, quickly meeting today's demands.
• An open system that easily integrates with other technologies – A multi-OEM approach lets you choose from specialized and diverse technologies to support specific AI workloads. Intel Gaudi 3 AI accelerator works with open, standards-based systems, allowing them to interoperate with your current and future IT environment, including your Ethernet networking infrastructure.
• An option of two form factors for specific use cases –
• Intel® Gaudi® AI accelerator mezzanine card, designed for massive scale-out, ideal for large-scale inference and training workloads.
• Intel® Gaudi® 3 AI accelerator PCIe card, ideal for smaller inference workloads, operating at relatively lower power.

The Intel Gaudi 3 AI accelerator is but one element in a larger AI ecosystem portfolio available to WWT and other technology allies, allowing us to build scalable, secure solutions with rapid time to market.

The economic advantages of dedicated Intel Gaudi 3 AI acceleration

Organizations not only require an AI-capable infrastructure to meet current and future needs, they're also focused on increasing efficiency, looking to maximize ROI and lower TCO while improving outcomes. The Intel Gaudi 3 AI accelerator supports this goal by offering:

• A cost-effective alternative – WWT is always looking for solutions that meet or exceed requirements while delivering a significant return on investment. We've determined that this acceleration option meets that price/performance goal.
• Reduced power and cooling requirements – The Intel Gaudi 3 AI accelerator does the work of a GPU while consuming significantly less energy, resulting in bottom-line savings.
• Avoiding licensing fees – Unlike other acceleration alternatives, Intel does not impose a charge for software licensing. The savings on the total cost of ownership from removing licensing fees can be tremendous – up to 30 percent of the overall solution cost. The Intel Gaudi 3 AI accelerator eliminates this expensive pain point that is expected to grow in the future.

Create an AI Center of Excellence with WWT and Intel Gaudi 3 AI accelerator 

For organizations wanting to level up their AI advantages, the Intel Gaudi 3 AI accelerator offers GPU-like performance with new efficiencies, the flexibility of open standards, and cost savings in everything from licensing to resource consumption. With this acceleration alternative, organizations can avoid the vendor lock-in of proprietary systems, deploying solutions on their choice of MLOps infrastructure.

WWT invites you to start a conversation about establishing your own center of excellence at the accelerator/compute layer, free from the roadblocks of single-OEM architecture. We'll show you how it can work for your organization in our AI Proving Ground, part of WWT's Advanced Technology Center (ATC) multi-campus R&D ecosystem.