Graphcore Launches Global Partner Program

BRISTOL, England, Sept. 22, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Graphcore is pleased to announce the launch of its Elite Partner Program, a global network of channel partners helping to fulfil customer demand for the company's acclaimed AI compute platform, the IPU-M2000 and IPU-POD for scale-out and supercomputing scale.

At launch, the Graphcore Elite Partner Program includes many of the world's best-known channel partners, technology distributors, and resellers, with additional partners being added over time.

The full list of launch partners is: 2CRSi, Atos, Boston Limited, BSI, Dell Technologies, Digital China, Inspur, Lambda, Macnica/Cytech, Meadowgate Technologies, Megazone, OCF, Penguin Computing, Softcat, Tech Data Europe, Tech Data US, and Wildflower International.

The scale and international reach of Graphcore's go-to-market partner program reflects the momentum that has already built around the company's Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU), as well as the high demand for its recently announced second-generation IPU systems.

"The Graphcore Elite Partner Program allows us to serve commercial, academic and governmental customers around the world, through some of the most trusted names in the information technology supply chain," said Graphcore CEO Nigel Toon.

"Our new IPU-M2000 system offers unparalleled compute performance, with a cost of ownership that is far more attractive than the legacy technologies that have dominated machine intelligence until now. That's creating a wave of excitement and commercial opportunities that span the globe."

The Graphcore Elite Partner Program allows founding members to offer their customers the leading next-generation AI computing platform, at a time when artificial intelligence is permeating every industry, from finance and healthcare to automotive and consumer internet.

In addition to the growing need for AI compute within the private sector, demand is growing rapidly in the public sector and from research institutions. Artificial Intelligence is also, increasingly, assuming many of workloads previously undertaken by high performance computing (HPC).

"Graphcore is clearly lining up the right partners to make the MK2 and IPU Machine broadly available," said Karl Freund, Sr Analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy.

"I expect the company to expand this list further as customers gain experience with the highly flexible IPU Machine and the Poplar software development stack."

Graphcore Elite Partner Program Member Quotes:

2CRSi

"2CRSi is always eager to integrate new innovative technology and provide state of the art solutions. We are excited to combine 2CRSi hardware expertise and Graphcore's cutting edge technology to propose best-in class products for AI computing. We are therefore thrilled to join Graphcore's Elite Partner Program and to be able to deliver Graphcore's IPU-M2000 product to customers across Europe and the Middle East."

Alain Wilmouth, Founder and CEO, 2CRSi

Atos 

"Graphcore technology is a promising technology proven across many of the sectors that Atos serves, from medical research to financial services, academia to automotive. 

"With demand for AI compute growing, we are delighted to be making Graphcore systems available throughout our ecosystem."  

Agnès Boudot, Senior Vice President, Head of HPC & Quantum at Atos 

Boston Limited 

"Boston have been at the forefront in the transition to AI compute solutions and are very well placed to recognise that corporations, research institutions and public bodies are looking to harness this new way of processing their data. The reduction in time, cost and green credentials afforded by using Graphcore's systems have created incredible excitement with both commercial and technical specialists. We are delighted to be making the IPU-M2000 available to our customers." 

Dev Tyagi, CSMO, Boston Limited

BSI  

"BSI's clients are leaders in their industries, continually seeking a competitive advantage that will benefit themselves and their customers. Graphcore's built-for-AI compute solution offers precisely that, and has already proven its worth in financial services, computer vision, natural language and numerous other applications. We expect Graphcore technology to become a must-have tool for anyone seeking to get the most out of their AI investment."  

Daniel Goodman, Managing Director, Business Systems International Ltd., (BSI) 

Dell Technologies

"The transformational impact of AI and machine learning spans applications in our daily lives to the ability to effect human progress. As Machine Learning models increasingly become more sophisticated, new processing technologies are needed to meet the resource demands required to drive business outcomes. Seeing this opportunity, Dell Technologies Capital was an early investor in Graphcore. Working with Dell Technologies OEM Solutions, Graphcore now can offer a turnkey system, engineered with Dell EMC PowerEdge R6525 servers, designed to accelerate machine intelligence, helping customers reduce their time to value in training AI models and achieving business insights."

Ron Pugh, vice president and general manager, Dell Technologies OEM Solutions

Lambda 

"Lambda provides AI compute infrastructure to the world's leading machine learning research teams. We're looking forward to a successful partnership with Graphcore to provide their IPU to our customers. The advances in AI we've seen over the past decade have been primarily driven by advances in computation. Researchers have been eager to try out Graphcore's new IPU-M2000 and we're excited to give them a glimpse of the future." 

Stephen Balaban, Co-founder & CEO, Lambda 

Meadowgate Technologies  

"Meadowgate is the technological enabler for our US Federal Customers that demand the best performing, most reliable and trustworthy systems. As our customers navigate the vast opportunity that artificial intelligence offers, we are delighted to be working with Graphcore - a company that has already built a reputation for relentless innovation and a deep commitment to its users' needs."  

Hunter Lochte, VP Operations, Meadowgate Technologies 

Megazone 

"Megazone joins the Graphcore Elite Partner Program, having already worked extensively with Graphcore to deliver powerful AI solutions to our customers. Having seen, first-hand, the performance advantage that can be gained using IPU technology, we are delighted to formally become a Graphcore Elite Partner, and extent that same competitive advantage to many more customers across Korea."  

Eric Han, Managing Director / Hybrid Cloud & AI Platform Service, Megazone 

OCF  

"OCF is delivering solutions and services across the most consequential technologies of our time – HPC, Cloud, Storage and Artificial Intelligence. We are delighted to be adding Graphcore's IPU-M2000 system to our customer offering. Graphcore has already distinguished itself as building standout technology that raises the performance bar on today's AI applications, as well as enabling the next generation of models and techniques." 

Russell Slack, Managing Director, OCF Limited

Tech Data USA 

"Many businesses around the world are familiar with Graphcore and understand the capabilities of its IPU technology. As an Elite Partner, serving more than 100 countries, Tech Data will bring this technology to market to our customers around the world, satisfying the global demand from innovators in private industry to public institutions." 

Maghen Hannigan, Director, Converged and Integrated Solutions, Tech Data USA 

Wildflower International 

"Wildflower International supports mission-critical applications across the public and Federal Government sectors. Our customers understand the need for systems and technologies that offer leading-edge capabilities, a robust and trustworthy support system, and compelling economics. Graphcore meets all of those criteria and, moreover, we expect the IPU-M2000 to become an essential tool for our clients as they build their AI capabilities."  

Andrew Balzarini, Director, Marketing & Alliances, Wildflower International 

For more information on the program contact: partners@graphcore.ai or visit graphcore.ai/partners.

About the Graphcore IPU-M2000

The IPU-Machine M2000 is a plug-and-play Machine Intelligence compute blade that has been designed for easy deployment and supports systems that can grow to massive scale. The slim 1U blade delivers one PetaFlop of Machine Intelligence compute and includes integrated networking technology, optimized for AI scale-out, inside the box.

Each IPU-Machine M2000 is powered by four of Graphcore's new 7nm Colossus™ Mk2 GC200 IPU processors, and is fully supported by our Poplar® software stack. 

IPU M-2000 product will be available in the channel in Q4.

About Graphcore

Graphcore's Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU) hardware and Poplar software helps innovators create next generation machine intelligence solutions. The IPU is the first processor to be designed specifically for Machine Intelligence and offers significant performance advantages compared to other computing hardware, typically used in artificial intelligence. In addition to outperforming other technologies at today's most common workloads, the Graphcore IPU has been architected to excel at next-generation Ai applications – including highly sparse models.

Graphcore has raised more than $450m in in funding from leading financial and strategic investors and is headquartered in Bristol UK, with offices in London UK, Oslo Norway, Palo Alto USA and Beijing China.

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

Media contact:
Iain Mackenzie
Head of Communications
Iainm@graphcore.ai

SOURCE Graphcore