Grace CPU Links with GPUs for Faster AI Processing

April 14, 2021

NVIDIA’s Grace CPU, replete with NVLinks, was revealed at GTC 2021—sort of.

NVIDIA’s massive cluster of announcements at GTC 2021 included a very significant one: the Grace processor (Fig. 1). There aren’t a lot of details yet and it will not hit the racks for a while. Still, between NVIDIA’s acquisition of Arm and Arm’s latest ARMv9 announcement, this is a major move into the cloud and enterprise space.

1. The Grace CPU will be the core of NVIDIA’s enterprise and high-performance processing systems.

One of the main features of Grace is the inclusion of NVLinks (Fig. 2). These are high-speed links that are already used with high-end, enterprise NVIDIA GPGPUs. NVLinks provide a cache-coherent connection between chips allowing memory to be shared. This was limited to GPGPUs until Grace arrived.

2. Memory tends to be a bottleneck with a conventional CPU/GPU mix (left), but Grace incorporates high-speed NVLinks compatible with NVIDIA GPUs.

NVLink support is key because platforms like NVIDIA’s DGX include some NVLink NVSwitch switches. A system can include multiple switch chips to provide connectivity for a large number of GPUs and now CPUs. The interface is faster than PCI Express, thus NVLink will be the backbone for most large systems rather than PCIe-based solutions like CCIX and CXL.

Grace will be NVIDIA’s enterprise processor taking on its x86 cousins, but it will also be incorporated into platforms like Bluefield (Fig. 3).

3. Grace will be showing up in a number of NVIDIA platforms going forward, including the blending of the Grace CPU and Ampere GPU in Bluefield.

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William G. Wong | Senior Content Director - Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF

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