AMD has announced that it has delivered several complete high performance computing (HPC) systems for Covid-19 research. The first beneficiaries of the AMD HPC Fund for Covid-19 research are; New York University (NYU), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Rice University. Of course these supercomputer clusters utilise AMD technologies such as AMD Epyc CPUs and Radeon Instinct GPUs.
In addition to the donations to the above three institutions, AMD will contribute a cloud-based system powered by AMD Epyc and Radeon Instinct processors, to be located on-site at Penguin Computing. This resource will provide remote supercomputing capabilities for selected researchers around the world (via the cloud). In all the NYU, MIT, Rice University, and Penguin Computing machines provide >7 petaflops of compute power.
AMD CEO Dr Lisa Su said that HPC systems, like the ones donated, are hugely important to viral research, and will help accelerate the development of "potential therapeutics and vaccines". Su added that once the Covid-19 crisis is over, the HPC systems will support future medical research.
Dr Lisa Su tops S&P 500 annual pay survey
In another AMD news snippet worth a mention, the AMD CEO is the best paid S&P 500 CEO, according to the latest annual survey. For the first time since this survey from AP began a woman is at the top of the list. USA Today reports that she enjoyed "compensation valued at $58.5 million after guiding her company's stock to the best performance in the S&P 500 for two straight years."
Intel and Nvidia Covid-19 initiatives
Intel has previously announced tech and funding help to fight Covid-19. Nvidia has previously announced various initiatives to accelerate research into Covid-19.
