This week Applied Digital posted an overview video showing progress on the high performance computing facility at Ellendale (Phase II of its development here, formally known as ELN02).
The video gives an idea of the scale of the project and also its complexity. The goal of the design is to place as many servers as possible in close proximity to one another, while keeping temperature levels within ideal range. Compacting the servers together closely is a big factor in speed and efficiency.
The facility is optimized for Nvidia Blackwell processors, which represent a giant leap forward in speed and reduced power consumption over the current generation of GPUs. The Blackwell processor was only unveiled in March. There's a long lead time until it will be widely available, but this Applied Digital plant is one of the first in line to receive it.
In theory, this plant could be home to one of the world's most powerful concentrations of artificial intelligence (AI) computing capacity. The sophistication of the place is many levels beyond that of the existing Ellendale facility (ELN01), which is designed for cryptocurrency processing.
There's been a huge amount of change in the world of AI computing in the last few years, and it's highly uncertain what things will look like in another few years. As with the internet in the 1990s, no one knows exactly where this all will lead. Applied Digital is banking a huge amount of capital in this facility in the belief that it will pay off handsomely in the medium-term and long-term.