NVIDIA Grace Family: Revolutionizing Data Center Efficiency

The
exponential
growth
in
data
processing
demand
is
projected
to
reach
175
zettabytes
by
2025,
according
to
the

NVIDIA
Technical
Blog.
This
surge
contrasts
sharply
with
the
slowing
pace
of
CPU
performance
improvements,
highlighting
the
need
for
more
efficient
computing
solutions.

Addressing
Efficiency
with
NVIDIA
Grace
CPU

NVIDIA’s
Grace
CPU
family
is
designed
to
tackle
this
challenge.
The
first
CPU
developed
by
NVIDIA
to
power
the
AI
era,
the
Grace
CPU
features
72
high-performance,
power-efficient
Arm
Neoverse
V2
cores,
NVIDIA
Scalable
Coherency
Fabric
(SCF),
and
high-bandwidth,
low-power
LPDDR5X
memory.
The
CPU
also
boasts
a
900
GB/s
coherent
NVLink
Chip-to-Chip
(C2C)
connection
with
NVIDIA
GPUs
or
other
CPUs.

The
Grace
CPU
supports
multiple
NVIDIA
products
and
can
pair
with
NVIDIA
Hopper
or
Blackwell
GPUs
to
form
a
new
type
of
processor
that
tightly
couples
CPU
and
GPU
capabilities.
This
architecture
aims
to
supercharge
generative
AI,
data
processing,
and
accelerated
computing.

Next-Generation
Data
Center
CPU
Performance

Data
centers
face
constraints
in
power
and
space,
necessitating
infrastructure
that
delivers
maximum
performance
with
minimal
power
consumption.
The
NVIDIA
Grace
CPU
Superchip
is
designed
to
meet
these
needs,
offering
outstanding
performance,
memory
bandwidth,
and
data-movement
capabilities.
This
innovation
promises
significant
gains
in
energy-efficient
CPU
computing
for
data
centers,
supporting
foundational
workloads
such
as
microservices,
data
analytics,
and
simulation.

Customer
Adoption
and
Momentum

Customers
are
rapidly
adopting
the
NVIDIA
Grace
family
for
various
applications,
including
generative
AI,
hyper-scale
deployments,
enterprise
compute
infrastructure,
high-performance
computing
(HPC),
and
scientific
computing.
For
instance,
NVIDIA
Grace
Hopper-based
systems
deliver
200
exaflops
of
energy-efficient
AI
processing
power
in
HPC.

Organizations
such
as
Murex,
Gurobi,
and
Petrobras
are
experiencing
compelling
performance
results
in
financial
services,
analytics,
and
energy
verticals,
demonstrating
the
benefits
of
NVIDIA
Grace
CPUs
and
NVIDIA
GH200
solutions.

High-Performance
CPU
Architecture

The
NVIDIA
Grace
CPU
was
engineered
to
deliver
exceptional
single-threaded
performance,
ample
memory
bandwidth,
and
outstanding
data
movement
capabilities,
all
while
achieving
a
significant
leap
in
energy
efficiency
compared
to
traditional
x86
solutions.

The
architecture
incorporates
several
innovations,
including
the
NVIDIA
Scalable
Coherency
Fabric,
server-grade
LPDDR5X
with
ECC,
Arm
Neoverse
V2
cores,
and
NVLink-C2C.
These
features
ensure
that
the
CPU
can
handle
demanding
workloads
efficiently.

NVIDIA
Grace
Hopper
and
Blackwell

The
NVIDIA
Grace
Hopper
architecture
combines
the
performance
of
the
NVIDIA
Hopper
GPU
with
the
versatility
of
the
NVIDIA
Grace
CPU
in
a
single
Superchip.
This
combination
is
connected
by
a
high-bandwidth,
memory-coherent
900
GB/s
NVIDIA
NVLink
Chip-2-Chip
(C2C)
interconnect,
delivering
7x
the
bandwidth
of
PCIe
Gen
5.

Meanwhile,
the
NVIDIA
GB200
NVL72
connects
36
NVIDIA
Grace
CPUs
and
72
NVIDIA
Blackwell
GPUs
in
a
rack-scale
design,
providing
unparalleled
acceleration
for
generative
AI,
data
processing,
and
high-performance
computing.

Software
Ecosystem
and
Porting

The
NVIDIA
Grace
CPU
is
fully
compatible
with
the
broad
Arm
software
ecosystem,
allowing
most
software
to
run
without
modification.
NVIDIA
is
also
expanding
its
software
ecosystem
for
Arm
CPUs,
offering
high-performance
math
libraries
and
optimized
containers
for
various
applications.

For
more
information,
see
the

NVIDIA
Technical
Blog.

Image
source:
Shutterstock