Atos and Graphcore partner to deliver advanced AI HPC solutions worldwide
Paris (France) and Bristol (UK) – July 22, 2021
Atos and Graphcore today announce that they have signed a partnership to accelerate performance and innovation in Artificial Intelligence (AI) by integrating Graphcore’s advanced IPU compute systems into Atos’ recently launched ThinkAI offering to bring AI high-performance solutions to customers worldwide.
This partnership will mutually benefit both parties. Atos’ long-standing position as a European leader in high-performance computing (HPC) and trusted advisor, provider and integrator of HPC solutions at scale will give Graphcore access to a multitude of new customers, sectors and geographies. Graphcore in turn will work with Atos globally to expand its global reach by targeting large corporate enterprise in sectors including finance, healthcare, telecoms and consumer internet as well as national labs and universities focused on scientific research, which are rapidly developing their AI capabilities.
ThinkAI brings together Atos’ AI business consultancy expertise – with its experts at the AtosCenter of Excellence in Advanced Computing – with its digital security capabilities and its software, such as Atos HPC Software Suites, to enable organizations to accelerate time to AI operationalization and industrialization.
Graphcore, the UK-headquartered maker of the Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU), plays a significant role in Atos’ ThinkAI offering, which is focused on the twin objectives of accelerating pure artificial intelligence applications and augmenting traditional HPC simulation with AI. Graphcore’s IPU-POD systems for scale-up datacentre computing will be an integral part of ThinkAI.
Even before today’s formal launch of the partnership, the two companies welcomed their first major joint customer, one of the largest cloud providers in South Korea, which will be using Graphcore systems in large-scale AI cloud datacenters, in a deal facilitated by Atos.
“ThinkAI represents a massive commitment to the future of artificial intelligence by one of the world’s most trusted technology companies. For Atos to have put Graphcore as a key part of its strategy says a great deal about the maturity of our hardware and software, and the ability of our systems to deliver on customer needs,” said Fabrice Moizan, GM and SVP Sales EMEAI and Asia Pacific at Graphcore.
Agnès Boudot, Senior Vice President, Head of HPC & Quantum at Atos said: “With ThinkAI, we’re making it possible for organizations from any industry to achieve breakthroughs with AI. Graphcore’s IPU hardware and Poplar® software is opening up new opportunities for innovators to explore the potential of AI for their organizations, complemented with our industry-tailored AI business consultancy, digital security capabilities and software, we’re excited to be orchestrating these cutting-edge technologies in our ThinkAI solution.”
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About Atos
Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with 105,000 employees and annual revenue of over € 11 billion. European number one in cybersecurity, cloud and high performance computing, the Group provides tailored end-to-end solutions for all industries in 71 countries. A pioneer in decarbonization services and products, Atos is committed to a secure and decarbonized digital for its clients. Atos operates under the brands Atos and Atos|Syntel. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), listed on the CAC40 Paris stock index.
The purpose of Atos is to help design the future of the information space. Its expertise and services support the development of knowledge, education and research in a multicultural approach and contribute to the development of scientific and technological excellence. Across the world, the Group enables its customers and employees, and members of societies at large to live, work and develop sustainably, in a safe and secure information space.
About Graphcore
Graphcore is the inventor of the Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU), the world’s most sophisticated microprocessor, specifically designed for the needs of current and next-generation artificial intelligence workloads.
Graphcore’s IPU-POD datacenter systems, for scale up and scale out AI compute, offer the ability to run large models across multiple IPUs, or to share the compute resource between different users and workloads.
Since its founding in 2016, Graphcore has raised more than $730 million in funding.
Investors include Sequoia Capital, Microsoft, Dell, Samsung, BMW iVentures, Robert Bosch Venture Capital, as well as leading AI innovators including Demis Hassabis (Deepmind), Pieter Abbeel (UC Berkeley), and Zoubin Ghahramani (Google Brain).
More information can be found at https://www.graphcore.ai
Press contacts:
Atos: Laura Fau | laura.fau@atos.net | +33 6 73 64 04 18 | @laurajanefau
Graphcore: Iain Mackenzie | Iainm@graphcore.ai | +447977 015577
