Verne Global's new Icelandic data centre leverages 100% renewable energy
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Verne Global, a provider of highly optimised, secure, and 100% renewably powered data center solutions, has announced that DeepL has deployed its 5.1 petaFLOPS supercomputer in its campus. Designed to support DeepL's artificial intelligence (AI) driven, neural network translation service, this supercomputer is viewed by many as the world's most accurate and natural-sounding machine translation service.
Verne Global was selected because of the following factors: "For DeepL, we needed a data center optimised for high-performance computing (HPC) environments and determined that our needs could not be met in Germany. Verne Global's Icelandic campus provides us with the scalability, flexibility and technical resources we need. In addition, the abundance of low-cost renewable energy and free cooling will allow us to train DeepL's neural networks at lower cost and faster scalability," says Jaroslaw Kutylowski, CTO of DeepL.
"Verne Global's team has a high level of technical expertise, which helps us to implement ad hoc requests quickly and easily. I've never seen such an excellent cooperation before." On the supercomputer located within Verne Global's campus, DeepL trains the neuronal translation networks based on collected data sets. As DeepL learns, the network leverages AI to examine millions of translations and learn independently how to translate with the right grammar and structure.
"We are pleased that our HPC-optimised campus was the ideal location for DeepL's supercomputer. Our location in Iceland provides a low and stable energy price with the highest possible availability and scalability "“ criteria that are indispensable for computational and power-intensive applications," says Tate Cantrell, Chief Technology Officer of Verne Global.
"We are seeing growing interest from companies using AI tools, such as deep neural network (DNN) applications, to revolutionise how they move their businesses forward, create change, and elevate how we work, live and communicate." The market for AI, machine learning and cognitive computing is expanding rapidly. According to a recent paper, "Artificial Intelligence, The Next Digital Frontier?", issued by the McKinsey Global Institute, the total annual external investment in AI was between $8B to $12B in 2016, with machine learning attracting nearly 60% of that investment. McKinsey also states that,
"A confluence of developments is driving this new wave of AI development. Computer power is growing, algorithms and AI models are becoming more sophisticated, and, perhaps most important of all, the world is generating once unimaginable volumes of the fuel that powers AI"”data. Billions of gigabytes every day, collected by networked devices ranging from web browsers to turbine sensors." Verne Global's data center, located on a former NATO base in Iceland, draws its electricity from hydroelectric and geothermal energy. The cool, temperate climate in Iceland enables free cooling, that when combined with the low-cost, renewable power, means that companies can save more than 70% on the total cost of operations for their compute resources over less optimal locations within the US, UK and continental Europe.
