Featured content from our partner, Lenovo.
Who Is Responsible Compute?
A joint venture by Icelandic IT solutions provider Origo and Borealis Data Center, Responsible Compute specializes in sustainable high-performance computing (HPC) services. The company provides HPC infrastructure hosted in Borealis data centers in northern Iceland, running on 100% renewable energy. Responsible Compute delivers its services in cooperation with Rescale, a global leader in HPC built for the cloud.
The Challenge
Data center computing generates around 2% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, putting it on par with the airline industry. Ever-growing demand for computing by data-intensive, power-hungry applications is only accelerating this trend. If left unchecked, it could easily propel carbon emissions far beyond the current levels.
Responsible Compute intends to provide a solution to this emissions challenge. By utilizing Iceland’s plentiful hydro and geothermal energy sources to power its infrastructure, the company can offer cost-effective, carbon-neutral hosting. It allows clients to run the compute-intensive workloads that their businesses increasingly demand, in a sustainable and responsible way.
This is sustainable HPC without compromise—and at Responsible Computing, it runs on Lenovo infrastructure.
“We saw that there was a growing problem with the way the HPC market operates. The tide of data, power consumption, and emissions only continues to rise, at a time of unprecedented energy crisis and environmental damage. With Responsible Compute, we aim to offer a better way to deliver on the demand for HPC, without detrimental environmental impact.” —Kristján Hafsteinsson, Managing Director, Responsible Compute
Building an Energy-Efficient Data Center
High-density Lenovo ThinkSystem servers sit at the heart of Responsible Compute's sustainable HPC hosting infrastructure, specified to customer needs depending on their workloads. The Lenovo compute nodes are virtualized with VMware Cloud, optimized for HPC and AI workloads.
The flexibility of being able to specify according to customer needs allows Responsible Compute to pair the hardware supplied by Lenovo with software in an optimal way, reducing solving times and therefore lowering cost. For example, Responsible Compute provides an electric vehicle manufacturer—a customer of Rescale—access to a cluster built around Intel® Xeon® Platinum 8358 processors, helping the manufacturer get the optimal solving times on the software that it is using.
Hardware
- Lenovo ThinkSystem SD630 V2 servers
- Intel Xeon Platinum 8358 processors
Software
- Lenovo XClarity Energy Manager
- Rescale platform for turnkey HPC
- VMware Cloud
Customer access to this powerful, efficient infrastructure is made easy thanks to Responsible Compute’s partnership with Rescale. Through the Rescale cloud platform, users can deliver any application, on any architecture, at any scale—opening new possibilities for HPC. “Because the Rescale software is running in the cloud, it gives users a ‘local’ access feeling even though the computing runs in Iceland—no matter where they are located,” says Hafsteinsson.
In addition, Responsible Compute makes use of Lenovo XClarity Energy Manager to monitor power and temperature at the server level and group level. It means the company can provide customers with detailed, real-time insight into exactly how much energy they’re using, helping them operate with optimal efficiency in mind. Alongside this, Responsible Compute offers class-leading emissions reporting based on standardized methods of calculation, making it easy for customers to track and report on IT-related emissions.
“Lenovo has been a joy to work with. The team is incredibly helpful and delivers very speedy service. We can tell that they truly care about helping us run at our best.” —Kristján Hafsteinsson, Managing Director, Responsible Compute
Rescale has embarked on a journey of providing HPC solutions to its customers in a highly sustainable and carbon neutral way. With the increasingly rapid adoption of cloud infrastructure for research and development, Rescale wants to provide its customers and the industry with choice.
Leveraging a close partnership with its cloud providers, especially Responsible Compute, Rescale is able to offer a vast computational resource in a carbon neutral way, while providing organizations with the data and reporting required to meet carbon objectives.
Results
By joining forces with partners like Lenovo, Intel, and Rescale, Responsible Compute is bringing powerful and planet-friendly HPC resources within closer reach of more businesses. Customers can count on ultra-reliable, high-performing Lenovo and Intel technology to power their most complex and critical workloads. And thanks to Rescale, Responsible Compute can deliver those capabilities closer to wherever customers are located, avoiding latency issues.
Crucially, this cloud-enabled flexibility also means customers anywhere in the world can reap the environmental and economic benefits of Responsible Compute’s highly favorable location in Iceland. Here, natural conditions, including low temperatures and glacial waters, support an extremely energy-efficient data center. Similarly, running entirely on hydropower allows the company to ensure 100% renewable operations. Iceland also has one of Europe’s lowest costs on electricity, plus long-term energy contracts for pricing stability.
It all adds up to an extremely compelling value proposition: Responsible Compute’s customers can power world-class HPC while cutting their costs and carbon footprint, helping lead their businesses into a successful, sustainable future.
Hafsteinsson concludes: “We aim to provide a truly sustainable solution, one that allows our customers to reduce their carbon footprint, evaluate their emissions evolution, and take appropriate steps to further their journey towards carbon neutrality.”
- 100% renewable energy minimizes environmental impact
- Access to world-class HPC infrastructure at low cost
- Industry-leading control plane via Rescale
- Accessible anywhere in the world without perceived latency
- Energy monitoring helps ensure efficient operations
Why Lenovo?
As a fresh startup on the HPC cloud service provider scene, Responsible Compute saw the value in partnering with a globally recognized brand like Lenovo with a reputation for quality and excellence.
Hafsteinsson explains: “We’re new on the market, and we want to establish ourselves as a provider that customers can trust. Part of that includes aligning with technology providers who are frontrunners in their space—and when it comes to infrastructure, we absolutely see Lenovo as an industry leader.”