And you think you've mastered social distancing.
Selene is at the center of some of NVIDIA's most ambitious technology efforts.
Selene sends thousands of messages a day to colleagues on Slack.
Selene's wired into GitLab, a key industry tool for tracking the deployment of code, providing instant updates to colleagues on how their projects are going.
One of NVIDIA's best resources works just a block from NVIDIA's Silicon Valley, Calif., campus, but Selene can only be visited during the pandemic only with the aid of a remote-controlled robot.
Selene is, of course, a supercomputer.
The world's fastest commercial machine, Selene was named the world's fifth-fastest supercomputer in the world on November's closely watched list of TOP500 supercomputers.
Built with new NVIDIA A100 GPUs, Selene achieved 63.4 petaflops on HPL, a key benchmark for high-performance computing, on that same TOP500 list.
While the TOP500 benchmark, originally launched in 1993, continues to be closely watched, a more important metric today is peak AI performance.
By that metric, using the A100's 3rd generation tensor core, Selene delivers over 2,795 petaflops*, or nearly 2.8 exaflops, of peak AI performance.
The new version of Selene doubles the performance over the prior version, which holds all eight performance records on MLPerf AI Training benchmarks for commercially available products.
But what's remarkable about this machine isn't its raw performance. Or how long it takes the two-wheeled, NVIDIA Jetson TX2 powered robot, dubbed Trip, tending Selene to traverse the co-location facility - a kind of hotel for computers - housing the machine.
Or even the quiet (by supercomputing standards) hum of the fans cooling its 555,520 computing cores and 1,120,000 gigabytes of memory, all connected by NVIDIA Mellanox HDR InfiniBand networking technology.
It's how closely it's wired into the day-to-day work of some of NVIDIA's top researchers.
That's why - with the rest of the company downshifting for the holidays - Mike Houston is busier than ever.
In Demand Houston, who holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford and is a recent winner of the ACM Gordon Bell Prize, is NVIDIA's AI systems architect, coordinating time on Selene among more than 450 active users at the company.
Sorting through proposals to do work on the machine is a big part of his job. To do that, Houston says he aims to balance research, advanced development and production workloads.
NVIDIA researchers such as Bryan Catanzaro, vice president for applied deep learning research, say there's nothing else like Selene.
Selene is the only way for us to do our most challenging work, Catanzaro said, whose team will be putting the machine to work the week of the 21st. We would not be able to do our jobs without it.
Catanzaro leads a team of more than 40 researchers who are using the machine to help advance their work in large-scale language modeling, one of the toughest AI challenges
His words are echoed by researchers across NVIDIA vying for time on the machine.
Built in just three weeks this spring, Selene's capacity has more than doubled since it was first turned on. That makes it the crown jewel in an ever-growing, interconnected complex of supercomputing power at NVIDIA.
In addition to large-scale language modeling, and, of course, performance runs, NVIDIA's computing power is used by teams working on everything from autonomous vehicles to next-generation graphics rendering to tools for quantum chemistry and genomics.
Having the ability to scale up to tackle big jobs, or tear off just enough power to tackle smaller tasks, is key, explains Marc Hamilton, vice president for solutions architecture and engineering at NVIDIA.
Hamilton matter of factly compares it to moving dirt. Sometimes a wheelbarrow is enough to get the job done. But for other jobs, where you need more dirt, you can't get the job done without a dump truck.
We didn't do it to say it's the fifth-fastest supercomputer on Earth, but because we need it, because we use it every day, Hamilton says.
The Fast and the Flexible It helps that the key component Selene is built with, NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD, is incredibly efficient.
A SuperPOD achieved 26.2 gigaflops/watt power-efficiency during its 2.4 HPL performance run, placing it atop the latest Green500 list of world's most efficient supercomputers.
That efficiency is a key factor in its ability to scale up, or carry bigger computing loads, by merely adding more SuperPODs.
Each SuperPOD, in turn, is comprised of compact, pre-configured DGX A100 systems, which are built using the latest NVIDIA Ampere architecture A100 GPUs and NVIDIA Mellanox InfiniBand for the compute and storage fabric.
Continental, Lockheed Martin and Microsoft are among the businesses that have adopted DGX SuperPODs.
The University of Florida's new supercomputer, expected to be the fastest in academia when it goes online, is also based on SuperPOD.
Selene is now composed of four SuperPODs, each with a total of 140 nodes, each a NVIDIA DGX A100, giving Selene a total of 560 nodes, up from 280 earlier this year.
A Need for Speed That's all well and good, but Catanzaro wants all the computing power he can get.
Catanzaro, who holds a doctorate in computer science from UC Berkeley, helped pioneer the use of GPUs to accelerate machine learning a decade ago by swapping out a 1,000 CPU system for three off-the-shelf NVIDIA Geforce GTX 580 GPUs, letting him work faster.
It was one of a number of key developments that led to the deep learning revolution. Now, nearly a decade later, Catanzaro figures he has access to roughly a million times more power thanks to Selene.
I would say our team is being really well supported by NVIDIA right now, we can do world-cl
Most recent headlines
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
09/05/2025
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Studio Technologies said the Harvard University athletics department has integrated Dante-enabled equipment from the vendor into its broadcast ...
09/05/2025
NEW YORK ITN, a provider of a local linear supply side platform, and Magnite, a independent sell-side advertising company, have announced that they working toge...
09/05/2025
LEEDS, U.K. Nugen Audio has launched a new speech intelligibility plug-in, DialogCheck and offered up quotes from technologists working at places like Netflix p...
09/05/2025
AJA I/O Gear: The Heart of Broadcast Solutions' VEGO Mobile Editing Solution
Brie Clayton May 8, 2025
0 Comments
When working remotely on broadcas...
09/05/2025
What do they teach in an Advanced Adobe After Effects Course?
Roland Kahlenberg May 8, 2025
0 Comments
There aren't many advanced After Effects co...
09/05/2025
Larry Jordan Sits with Trevor Morgan of OpenDrives at NAB 2025
Brie Clayton May 8, 2025
0 Comments
Trevor Morgan, COO of OpenDrives, shares how the co...
09/05/2025
Berklee Popular Music Institute Announces UK Festival Debut and Tour Dates For the first time, BPMI will bring Berklee-affiliated artists and students to the ...
08/05/2025
A sinister fairy infiltrates a desperate family in Kenneth Dagatan's In My Mother's Skin, which premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Photo co...
08/05/2025
As expected, continued weak demand from key sales markets and declining economic...
08/05/2025
A new three-part series is coming to BBC iPlayer and BBC One
(Image: The Christie Archive Trust)
The BBC has announced Agatha Christie's Endless Night, a...
08/05/2025
For skyward-bound operators, training focuses on the unique aspects of flying ISR missions, including the management of onboard surveillance equipment and the e...
08/05/2025
The cable industry has told the Federal Communications Commission it supports the National Association of Broadcasters' proposal to allow broadcasters to us...
08/05/2025
WASHINGTON The Consumer Technology Association has continued its opposition to mandates requiring that NextGen TV/ATSC 3.0 tuners be included in new TV sets, sa...
08/05/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real time visualization, has named Paul Maroni as Vice Pres...
08/05/2025
This year's UK Pavilion in hall 5, once again managed by Tradefair, will provide visitors with the unique opportunity to discuss and be involved in cutting ...
08/05/2025
Rohde & Schwarz will showcase its latest energy-efficient transmitters and 5G Broadcast technologies, designed to support network operators and content provider...
08/05/2025
IRVING, Texas Nexstar Media Group has tapped Bill Nardi as vice president of station operations, responsible for overseeing the day-to-day broadcast operations ...
08/05/2025
SEATTLE LumaTouch is partnering with CNN Academy to improve mobile storytelling techniques and support training across all of CNN Academy's training simulat...
08/05/2025
WASHINGTON The Society of Broadcast Engineers has filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission that support a proposal by the National Association ...
08/05/2025
Senior adviser to the United States Agency for Global Media Kari Lake has announced that One America News Network (OAN) will provide newsfeed services for fre...
08/05/2025
EdMon Expands as AI-Driven Post Production Workflows Gains Traction in Sweden an...
08/05/2025
Using Luma Mattes in Adobe Premiere Pro
Graham Quince May 7, 2025
0 Comments
This very quick tutorial shows you how to take an RGB clip and apply its ...
08/05/2025
OpenDrives Unveils Free Your Data' Initiative with New Astraeus Cloud-Nativ...
08/05/2025
Student Spotlight: Grigori Balasanyan The Armenian composer, who was named Boston Conservatory at Berklees 2025 student commencement speaker, talks about his ...
08/05/2025
08 May 2025
VEON Shareholders Re-elect Board at 2025 AGM, Founder Augie Fabela ...
08/05/2025
Comedy and entertainment channel U&Dave bring back their #1 ranked programme of ...
08/05/2025
May 8th, 2025 Press Materials Available Here
Tribeca Festival 2025 Unveils New Premieres Spanning Film and Music
Slick Rick's Victory with Idris Elba a...
08/05/2025
May 8th, 2025 Press Materials Available Here
Tribeca Festival 2025 Announces Lineup for Inaugural Storytelling Summit
11-Day Industry Event Launches with Tal...
08/05/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Vizrt's Nicholas Jameson on AI in Workflows, Pushing Boundarie...
08/05/2025
Creating Alternative Brand Experiences: Live Sports in the Age of Fortnite, Meta...
08/05/2025
PGA TOUR's David Piccolo: Advanced Graphics and Virtual Production Tools are...
08/05/2025
Tech Focus: Advancing Immersion in Sports Broadcasting with AR and Virtual Produ...
08/05/2025
Expect even more chaos this July with Harriet Webb leading the returning cast, p...
08/05/2025
Back to All News
Now in Production: Comedy Action Film Husbands in Action'...
08/05/2025
TenneT relies on Arvato Systems for market communication
Energy industry: Impressive market communication know-how and system integration expertise
G tersloh...
08/05/2025
When Taiki Hamamoto, 22, came across a Hanafuda deck at his local game shop, he was intrigued. He had grown up playing the traditional Japanese card game with f...
08/05/2025
The Liveline is now open , said Joe Duffy earlier today, as he previewed this af...
08/05/2025
RT , in association with the BBC, Screen Ireland and Cineflix Rights has reveale...
08/05/2025
Artificial intelligence is helping identify and treat diseases faster with better results for humankind. Natural disasters like wildfires are next.
Fires in th...
08/05/2025
Calling all wiseguys - 2K's acclaimed Mafia franchise is available to stream...
08/05/2025
As AI use cases continue to expand - from document summarization to custom software agents - developers and enthusiasts are seeking faster, more flexible ways t...
07/05/2025
Discovering music should feel effortless and fun. That's why Spotify continu...
07/05/2025
SBS and NITV mark National Reconciliation Week with compelling premieres recogni...
07/05/2025
SBS commences search for a new Western Sydney production hub location
7 May, 2025
Media releases
SBS has today launched a Request for Expressions of Intere...
07/05/2025
Warsaw, Poland - April 28, 2025 - Nielsen, a global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics, has released its latest March All Screens Video Landscap...
07/05/2025
LONDON Movie fans hoping to save money by waiting until their favorite new films appear on streaming services will have to wait a bit longer now, according to a...
07/05/2025
MECCA, Saudi Arabia Saudi Broadcasting Authority (SBA) has selected Grass Valley to provide a major technology upgrade of its broadcast facility here....
07/05/2025
Sony and Nevion provide guidance on IP network architecture options for live pro...
And you think you've mastered social distancing.
