Nvidia takes GPU to the cloud

ZDNet says.

Last week, the graphics chip specialist unveiled two new Tesla GPUs, the K10 and K20, and its Nvidia VGX platform for virtualised desktops. It also showed off a preview of its Cuda 5 parallel programming platform.

Nvidia says it has designed the products for large-scale data centres, where the GPUs' fast streaming and virtualisation capabilities can “accelerate cloud computing”. The Kepler architecture is the follow-up to Fermi, which delivered computational GPUs used in supercomputers for scientific research.

The new virtualisation technology has interesting implications in server designs and the deployment of cloud services to thin clients and devices like tablets, says Dean McCarron, principal analyst at Mercury Research, PC World writes.

“We can see some shifting going on. For one, GPUs haven't shown up in the server environment outside the high-performance computing space,” McCarron says. “It opens the door for playing very complex, visually detailed games on a thin client.”

The new technology also makes it easier and inexpensive to add GPUs to general server environments, McCarron adds. For example, a server-side virtualised GPU will be able to render a high-definition game and deliver it over the cloud while taking advantage of GPU acceleration features.