I am thrilled to announce that Graphcore China has launched an IPU DevCloud, located in China. We have had a Graphcore DevCloud based in the US for customers and academic partners for some time which Chinese customers have been able to use, but we are delighted to now have our own local cloud service supported by our China customer engineering and technical support teams.
We’ve partnered with Kingsoft Cloud to host our first IPU DevCloud in China. Kingsoft’s flexible and unique cloud service allows Graphcore to deploy a variety of different IPU systems, including the Dell DSS 8440 IPU Server and the Inspur NF 5568M5 IPU Server. Chinese commercial customers can now easily evaluate IPU systems from their supplier of choice. This also means we can begin to build a community of leading AI researchers and innovators with access to IPUs in the cloud.
Qualifying customers will receive free access to IPUs for up to three weeks to give enough time to port and optimise existing models to the IPU and to understand immediate and future potential performance improvements. They will be able to move fast to prove the value internally of investment in IPU systems for large scale pilots or production deployments. The time to market advantage will help them stay one step ahead of their competitors to commercialise their products and win new market opportunities with IPU.
Qualifying innovators and researchers can have free access for extended periods, typically around 6 months, in order to complete research projects and publish results. This gives innovators time to optimise models and results on IPU, to explore new research areas on IPUs and to trigger innovation in new directions. Researchers focused on making new and significant breakthroughs in machine intelligence to expand human potential will be given priority, as will those engaged in the fight against Covid-19.
Our local engineering and support teams will work together with developers to formulate engineering plans and to provide consulting and support throughout the whole process.
Kingsoft Cloud Partner, Liu Tao, said: “We are delighted to welcome the Graphcore IPU Developer Cloud to the Kingsoft Cloud, and anticipate that more and more developers will accelerate AI model innovation on the IPU DevCloud. Kingsoft Cloud will join hands with Graphcore to empower developers and contribute to industries’ adoption of AI applications.”
Building the IPU Developer Cloud in China shows Graphcore’s commitment to the Chinese innovation community. Graphcore embraces the Chinese AI ecosystem and is making sure AI innovators can make new breakthroughs in machine intelligence through the free use of IPU Developer Cloud and continuous knowledge sharing. We are bringing together all of the machine intelligence innovators who are most creative and eager as part of a Developer Community where they can explore and grow with Graphcore.
Graphcore’s Innovation Community has gone fully online. The Community platform includes WeChat, Zhihu, Weibo and the upcoming Chinese community website. Innovators can easily raise questions via their preferred social platforms to Graphcore scientists and technical experts all over the world. They can acquire the latest information about IPU hardware products and Poplar software updates, read in-depth technology articles and learn together with other innovators.
Nigel Toon, Co-Founder and CEO of Graphcore, said, “Graphcore has a deep commitment to the China market. By offering free IPU support in the cloud to AI researchers and innovators, and operating the Innovation Community in China, we can support the most innovative talent in China to address the world’s most challenging AI issues.”
If you would like to access the Graphcore IPU Developer Cloud, please get in touch with us here. We will contact you as soon as possible upon receiving your request.
