Russian firm starts shipments of AI systems based on homegrown CPUs, but can't avoid using foreign GPUs
Graviton, a Russia-based server supplier, has announced its first AI and HPC server powered by Russia's own homegrown processors. This device can support up to eight compute GPUs to process artificial intelligence and supercomputer workloads. The vendor doesn't recommend any particular GPUs (though they can be easily guessed), probably because getting them amid sanctions is illegal. Furthermore, whether or not the machine can achieve competitive performance numbers is unclear.
The Graviton S2124B server is based on two undisclosed 48-core CPUs running at 2 GHz and featuring DDR4-3200 memory, according to ServerNews. The basic specification of the processor likely suggests the Baikal Electronics BE-S1000 server-grade chip that packs 48 Arm Cortex-A75 cores and supports 2-way and 4-way symmetric multiprocessor (SMP) configurations.
This particular version of the BE-S1000 seems to clock the CPU at 500 MHz below its original frequency, which is likely a result of porting its design from TSMC's 16FFC to a different production node at a different foundry. It is also possible that Baikal reduced the operating clocks to increase yields or reduce power consumption.
