VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 11, 2021 — AMPD Ventures Inc. (“AMPD” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce a ‘Machine Learning Cloud’ initiative designed to cater to the requirements of academic institutions and companies in the artificial intelligence (“AI”), machine learning and deep learning sectors. The platform, featuring AMD Instinct accelerators along with the AMD ROCm open software platform, will initially be hosted at AMPD’s DC1 data centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, but is expected to expand into other territories over the coming months.
AMD has been focusing on Data Centre Deep Learning solutions, combining its AMD ROCm open software platform with its powerful AMD Instinct accelerators. With an open-source toolset, AMD ROCm is designed to bring a rich foundation to advanced computing with the goal of solving real-world problems. It is the first open-source exascale-class platform for accelerated computing that’s also programming-language independent. It unlocks an array of different open compute languages, compilers, libraries, and tools designed from the ground up to meet the demanding needs of AI scientists and researchers – helping to accelerate code development and solve the toughest challenges in the world today.
AMPD expects to be the first company in Canada to offer the power of the AMD Instinct MI100 accelerators on a service basis. The AMD Instinct MI100 was announced in November 2020 as the world’s fastest High-Performance Computing (HPC) GPU, designed with AMD’s all-new AMD CDNA architecture and becoming the industry’s first data center GPU to exceed 10 Teraflops (FP64), according to the company.
AMPD intends to offer subsidized access to these exceptionally powerful compute resources to the academic artificial intelligence community in British Columbia, in addition to its programs for commercial customers who wish to assess their AI compute options in a low-risk environment. AMPD is working with academic institutions across the province, as well as the ‘AI in BC’ industry association to identify programs that would benefit from access to the platform, including a special emphasis on programs designed to increase access to machine learning technology for underrepresented groups with the aim of helping ensure an inclusive and diverse artificial intelligence future.
“It’s clear that AMD and AMPD share the same commitment to the open-source community and open-source technologies that are the driving force behind ROCm platform innovations,” said Brad McCredie, corporate vice president, Data Center GPU and Accelerated Processing, AMD. “We are pleased to provide AMPD with the power of these accelerators with the aim of facilitating access for academic institutions and researchers as cost effectively as possible. Our industry-differentiating approach to accelerated compute and heterogeneous workload development gives users unprecedented flexibility, choice and platform autonomy, and we are excited that AMPD plans to offer these advantages on a service basis.”
Additionally, both AMPD and AMD will support the community via the ROCm GitHub forums, including guidance and support for HIP (Heterogeneous-Computing Interface for Portability). AMD has developed a suite of tools designed to ease conversion of CUDA applications to portable C++ code by automating much of the conversion work via a source-to-source transformation from CUDA to HIP.
“BC is home to a critical mass of some 200 applied AI companies as well as leading academic and research programs,” said James Hursthouse, Chief Strategy Officer at AMPD. “We expect that this cutting-edge GPU-based hosted environment promoting open-source computing options will yield positive outcomes for AI companies and academic researchers and we are incredibly pleased that a company with the pedigree of AMD has recognized AMPD as a key go-to-market partner. We already have initiatives under way when it comes to the application of artificial intelligence and machine learning in other AMPD core sectors, such as the visual effects industry, as demonstrated by our joint industry academic project on artificial intelligence in motion capture in conjunction with AMPD customer, Shocap Entertainment, and a team of AI researchers at Simon Fraser University.”
Hursthouse recently moderated two panel discussions on the theme of artificial intelligence. On March 4th, 2021, he acted as Panel Chair for a session on ‘How to Build an AI Cluster’ at the ‘Global AI: How to Build Across Borders’ virtual conference, hosted by CityAge, with the support of the AI in BC industry association and the Canada Korea Business Association. Panelists included representatives from MasterCard, Cisco AI Lab, and AI in BC. Hursthouse also moderated a panel at the SPARK FX 2021 Virtual Conference (“SPARK”) with the title ‘Creative Artificial Intelligence and Movie Making: The Artist in the Loop’.
The global artificial intelligence (AI) software market is forecast to grow rapidly in the coming years, reaching around USD $126 billion by 20251. The overall AI market includes a wide array of applications such as natural language processing, robotic process automation, and machine learning. This growth is expected to represent an opportunity for a multi-sector company such as AMPD that supplies GPU-based high-performance computing environments to host these applications.
About AMPD Ventures Inc.
AMPD specializes in providing high-performance cloud and computing solutions for low-latency applications, including video games and eSports, digital animation and visual effects, and big data collection, analysis and visualization. Additional information about us is available on SEDAR and our website at http://ampd.tech.
Source: AMPD Ventures Inc.
