Dell has added 13 next-generation PowerEdge servers to its product line-up, including those designed for data centres, public clouds and for use in edge locations. They come as racks, towers and multi-node formats and include the fourth-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors. Dell says the servers include a focus on AI and sustainability.

Dell says its new generation of PowerEdge servers focus on AI and sustainability to improve performance in data centres (Photo: II.studio/Shutterstock)
Dell says its new generation of PowerEdge servers focus on AI and sustainability to improve performance in data centres. (Photo: II.studio/Shutterstock)

The new servers are built to underpin the desire among enterprise customers to process demanding workloads at scale, expanding on a range of new products announced in November that included Nvidia H100 Tensor Core GPUs and the Nvidia AI Enterprise software suite.

Built for cloud service providers, the PowerEdge HS5610 and HS5620 come in 1U and 2U form factors and can fit within large-scale, multi-vendor data centres. Dell claims the new machines offer a three times performance improvement over the previous generation in a machine requiring less floor space. The PowerEdge R760 also offers 2.9 times greater AI inferencing thanks in part to the Intel Deep Learning Boost and Intel Advanced Matrix Extensions.

“Our next-generation Dell PowerEdge servers offer unmatched innovation that raises the bar in power efficiency, performance and reliability while simplifying how customers can implement a zero-trust approach for greater security throughout their IT environments,” said Jeff Boudreau, president and general manager of the infrastructure solutions group at Dell Technologies.

Sustainability is high on the agenda across the PC sector, particularly in cloud and data centre environments where the rising cost of energy is hitting operations. Dell says it is focusing on software and hardware to boost the sustainability of its machines.

The impact of the war in Ukraine, together with the end of the Covid-19 restrictions, has seen interest rates and energy prices around the world soar. In this environment, ensuring that IT estates run efficiently has never been more important.

Dell PowerEdge: Focus on sustainability

Even before the current energy crisis, the role of ESG in IT had been growing in importance. Recent research from the Enterprise Strategy Group found that 93% of buyers surveyed said their IT supplier’s ESG programme played a significant or modest role in purchasing decisions.

Dell OpenManage Enterprise Power Manager 3.0 is a monitoring tool included with the product line that can be used to manage cooling, monitor carbon emissions and set power caps up to 82% faster, which makes it easier to manage and limit overall energy use from a single machine.

“Today’s modern data centre requires continuous performance improvements for complex workloads such as AI, ML and VDI,” said Kuba Stolarski, research vice president, IDC Enterprise Infrastructure Practice. “As data centre operators endeavour to keep up with the demand from these resource-hungry workloads, they must also prioritise environmental and security goals.”

They are also being pitched as a way to help accelerate zero-trust adoption within organisations’ IT environments due to the way the PowerEdge servers are able to constantly verify access, assume every user and device is a potential threat and do so through the silicon hardware acting as the root of trust “verifying the supply chain security from design to delivery”.

“A secure supply chain also enables customers to advance their zero-trust approach. Dell SCV offers cryptographic verification of components, which extends supply chain security to the customer’s site,” Dell said in a statement.

Lisa Spelman, corporate vice president and general manager, Intel Xeon Products said the fourth-generation Xeon Scalable processors have the most built-in accelerators of any CPU which helps to maximise performance efficiency for real-world applications, particularly AI.

The Dell PowerEdge R760 is available next month, with the HS5620, HS5610 available in April. There will be additional servers launched through the first half of the year, explained Dell.

Read more: How tech leaders can keep energy costs down