AUSA 2021: General Micro Systems unveils new artificial intelligence server

Tactical server manufacturer General Micro Systems unveiled its newest, high-powered server designed specifically to operate and support the plethora of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and applications set to flood the battlefield in the coming decades.

The company's Velocity 4×4 General-Purpose Graphics Processing Unit (GPGPU) tactical server is patterned after a similar tactical server deployed aboard the US Navy's P-8 Posiedon multimission maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft, chief technology officer Chris Ciufo said.

“Most servers out there use two processors ... it is unusual to have four processors” since the processing power required to support most tactical-level, edge computing demands can be met with a dual-processor server, General Micro Systems' chief information officer Chris Ciufo said during an interview at the Association of the United States Army's (AUSA's) annual symposium in Washington, DC.

“You typically do not need that much [processing] performance, and it tends to just get more expensive,” he said regarding the industry standard, two-processor server construct versus a four-processor system. “You double the processors, you [have to] double the power supply, double the cooling [and] ... you just do not need that much horsepower” when operating edge computing tasks at the tactical level, he added.

However, the increased integration of AI applications and technologies into operational-level edge computing platforms and systems has changed the computing demands for tactical servers. “This is intended for deployed, at the edge, artificial intelligence capabilities,” Ciufo said of the new quad-processor tactical server.