Lenovo bolts out with refreshed Intel Xeon 6 CPU ThinkSystem server portfolio as it seeks to outflank HP, Dell in AI server war

In a bid to gain ground on its rivals in the AI server market, Lenovo has launched its ThinkSystem V4 portfolio, powered by Intel’s new Xeon 6 processors.

The company says these systems will increase the accessibility of AI workloads at any scale, offering options for CPU-enabled AI inferencing on models up to 20 billion parameters and GPU-rich solutions for modeling and training for over 175 billion parameters.

The ThinkSystem V4 portfolio includes servers optimized for rack density and transactional data processing, with the aim of maximizing performance in data centers for enterprises, CSPs, high-performance computing, and telcos. Lenovo says the new servers provide over four times more cores per rack, with an increased performance of 4.3 times.

Neptune liquid-cooling

The new SD520 V4 server offers high rack density and efficiency, with up to 225% more cores in a 2U chassis and up to 3.18 times more throughput, which should make it ideal for compute-intensive transactional workloads in sectors like online banking and ecommerce.

The SR630 V4 is promoted as “reimagining power for cloud-scale”, with up to 42% faster media transcoding. It offers up to 2 times application bandwidth improvement thanks to the PCIe 5 IO and DDR5 memory.

Lenovo is also employing its Neptune liquid-cooling technology across the ThinkSystem V4 server range. This method has been proven to be more efficient than traditional air cooling, reducing the need for power-hungry system fans. According to the company, liquid-cooling helps meet the performance demands of AI while lowering power consumption by up to 40%.

AI smarts are also being added to the new Lenovo Systems Management platform. This will make use of generative AI to automate and simplify server deployment and configuration.

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“The Lenovo ThinkSystem V4 portfolio is designed to ensure that AI will be accessible, fair, and inclusive across all development and application stages,” said Kirk Skaugen (the now former) President of Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group.

“This next generation of Lenovo Intelligent Infrastructure delivers hybrid AI solutions that enable customers and partners to apply AI faster and fully unleash the power of data across any workload or scale.”