Graphcore and SiPearl: strategic partnership to combine artificial intelligence and high performance computing

Bristol (England) and Maisons-Laffitte (France) -- June 15, 2021 -- Graphcore, the British maker of the Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU), a new type of microprocessor specifically designed to support artificial intelligence workloads, and SiPearl, the Franco-German company that designs the high computing power and low consumption microprocessor for supercomputers, have entered into a strategic partnership. Under the terms of the agreement, the two European companies will develop integrated hardware and software solutions that will combine the power, speed and energy efficiency of their respective technologies.

Combining innovative technologies of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing will accelerate the evolution of simulation and prediction models. Indispensable for strategic applications such as epidemiology, medical research, meteorology, climatology or energy management, these models are often based either on artificial intelligence or on high performance computing.

The solutions co-developed by Graphcore and SiPearl will open up the possibility for developers and users to design new generations of data flows and application tasks that are both more efficient and easier to program and use.

"Graphcore and SiPearl share a vision of enabling innovators across a broad range of industries from medicine to automotive to finance, and beyond. We both understand that new types of computation are essential if we are to realise the full potential of new technologies, like AI. This is a great opportunity for Europe to define the shape of that next-generation compute,” said Fabrice Moizan, General Manager and SVP Sales EMEAI and APAC at Graphcore.

"We welcome this partnership with a European leader of Graphcore’s caliber, whose IPU is revolutionizing artificial intelligence. In the microprocessor segment, which represents half of the global semiconductor market, our respective technologies are perfectly complementary. Combining them will allow system manufacturers to develop a turnkey product that brings our end customers more performance, speed and energy efficiency”, concludes Philippe Notton, CEO and founder of SiPearl.

About Graphcore

Graphcore is the inventor of the Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU), the world’s most sophisticated microprocessor, designed for the needs of current and next-generation artificial intelligence workloads. The IPU-M2000 is a 1U datacentre blade, powered by four Graphcore Colossus GC200 IPU processors, capable of one PetaFlop of AI compute. For many AI training and inference tasks, IPU systems significantly outperforms the latest GPU-based systems.

For scale-up compute, Graphcore IPU-POD systems offer the ability to run large models at datacenter scale, or to share their compute resource across multiple users and tasks. Since its founding in 2016, Graphcore has raised over $710 million in funding.

More information can be found at https://www.graphcore.ai

About SiPearl

Created by Philippe Notton, SiPearl is the Franco-German company that is bringing to life the European Processor Initiative (EPI) project, designing the high-performance, low-power microprocessor for the European exascale supercomputer.

This new generation of microprocessors will enable Europe to set out its technological sovereignty on the strategic markets for high performance computing, artificial intelligence and connected mobility. SiPearl is developing and will market its solutions through close collaboration with its 26 partners from the EPI - scientific community, supercomputing centres and leading names from the IT, electronics and automotive industries - which are its stakeholders and future clients. It is supported by the European Union1. SiPearl is also a member of the Mont-Blanc 2020 consortium to equip Europe with a dedicated modular and energy-efficient high performance computing microprocessor, and is a member of the PlayFrance.Digital collective for Europe to lead the field for digital technology.