Optimizing AI infrastructure for scalable and high-performance systems – SiliconANGLE

As artificial intelligence applications grow in complexity and demand, optimizing AI infrastructure allows seamless scaling, ensuring that systems can handle increased workloads without performance degradation.

Recognizing that AI’s potential hinges on the strength of its underlying infrastructure, Penguin Solutions Inc. is taking a proactive approach by offering a sustainable operational model designed to enhance productivity and scalability, according to Trey Layton (pictured), vice president of software and product management at Penguin Solutions.

“The high-performance computing world needs to understand the problems of IT, and the IT world needs to understand the problems of high-performance computing,” he said. “In that, we get a convergence of those two skills, and the future artificial intelligence infrastructure engineer is one who gets both worlds. When we accommodate those two things by building an infrastructure that is modular, you’re acquiring partnerships with organizations that understand how to deal with the complexity and the scale simultaneously.”

Layton spoke with theCUBE’s Dave Vellante at the “Mastering AI: The New Infrastructure Rules” event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed why optimizing AI infrastructure should be top of mind in the modern digital landscape. (* Disclosure below.)

Through the optimizing AI infrastructure lens

Optimizing AI infrastructure enhances performance, reduces costs, ensures scalability and improves sustainability. As a result, taming the skills gap is needed for efficient management of AI workloads, according to Layton.

“When we’re building an artificial intelligence environment, we’re really talking about constructing an F1 car that’s designed to run around a track, and you need a different set of tools to be able to construct that highly specialized solution to be able to deliver those outcomes,” he said.

In the IT world, achieving peak performance is an occasional milestone, whereas AI infrastructure operates at peak efficiency continuously, demanding distinct skills and tools, Layton added. This contrast highlights the evolving need for specialized expertise and adaptive technologies to optimize both environments effectively.

Since HPC and advanced IT form the foundation of modern AI, they are absolutely crucial. They serve as the driving force behind optimizing AI infrastructure, according to Layton.

“If you think about the modern HPC engineer, he’s going to need to be versed in Kubernetes and microservices, where they’re largely experienced in batch-based processing technologies like Slurm and things like that,” he said. “Whereas the IT person has been skilled in virtualization and cloud technologies, and now they’re going to have to learn storage technologies like parallel file systems and how to run massively scalable clustered outcomes. These two worlds are colliding, and the skills are unique to each particular environment.”

Mitigating AI failures involves proactive planning, monitoring and refining AI systems to ensure accuracy, reliability and ethical use. This explains why optimizing AI infrastructure is needed to mitigate errors, according to Layton. 

“Our own report internal analysis shows that GPUs fail about 33 times the rate of a general purpose CPU,” he said. “If you go back to that car analogy, when you’re running a race car around a track, and the engine’s running at full RPMs all the time, sometimes tires are going to blow, sometimes cylinders are going to blow, and that’s what happens in these AI infrastructure solutions is that we’re running all the devices at peak performance all the time. How do you construct the environment to accommodate those failure conditions?”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of the “Mastering AI: The New Infrastructure Rules” event:

Watch the complete event episode here:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the “Mastering AI: The New Infrastructure Rules” event. Neither Penguin Solutions Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE