Hanoi, May 23, 2020 — VinAI Research, VinGroup’s world-class AI research arm, today announced the addition of a new, cutting-edge supercomputer to its AI computing platform. The machine, a newly-launched NVIDIA® DGX A100™, is a five-petaflop accelerated data centre in a box, and is the first deployment of such systems in Southeast Asia. As Vietnam’s first and leading AI research lab, VinAI has big plans for the five-petaflop machine, which offers more power, better memory and a brand new NVIDIA Ampere GPU architecture, and is a perfect fit for training large AI models for both language and videos.
VinAI Research conducts fundamental research in machine learning, deep learning, and new AI methods in computer vision and natural language understanding. Furthermore, the research lab aims to develop new AI applications, especially those that help enable more natural human interaction with machines through voices, gestures, behaviors, biometrics, or from smart devices and sensors. From its strategic location in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, VinAI is drawn towards providing AI-based solutions for the major problems in the fast-paced, growing economy of this region as well as grooming the AI talents in the region. The research lab has contributed to the global fight against the COVID-19 pandemic by automatically analysing tweets for COVID-19 events and enabling face recognition of people donning face masks.
“Around 70 research scientists, residents and engineers will be making full use of the new AI system. We have some exciting models and experiments waiting for the new machine. . Our lab’s computing-facility utilisation is always maxed out at 100% so there is no shortage of workload”, said Dr. Bui Hai Hung – Director, VinAI Research.
“The new NVIDIA DGX A100 will empower VinAI to optimise computing power and resources to accelerate diverse workloads including data analytics, training and inference. VinAI can now scale with ease as its needs increase. We will work closely with them on an architecture level and engage them from a developer’s perspective to drive successful outcomes for their AI projects,” said Dennis Ang, Director, Enterprise Business, SEA and ANZ Region at NVIDIA.
With the addition of the new NVIDIA DGX A100 supercomputer, VinAI is more than ready to up-scale its research and applied AI projects. Investment in the AI space is also part of a long-term strategy of VinGroup in becoming a technology-focused corporation.