Lenovo unveils ThinkSystem N1380 Neptune for AI efficiency

Powering a new era of efficient computing for generative AI, today at its annual global innovation event, Tech World, Lenovo unveiled the ThinkSystem N1380 Neptune — a 6th generation vertical liquid cooling breakthrough. Rolling out across the company’s partner ecosystem, the Lenovo innovation enables organizations everywhere to build and run accelerated computing for generative AI while reducing data center power consumption by up to 40%1.  

On stage, Lenovo expanded its longstanding collaboration with NVIDIA by announcing Lenovo Hybrid AI Advantage with NVIDIA and unveiled the ThinkSystem SC777 V4 Neptune. This powerful new system leverages the new ThinkSystem N1380 Neptune to help bring NVIDIA Blackwell and the NVIDIA GB200 to the enterprise market, enabling trillion-parameter AI models in a compact design.   

As AI adoption increases, data centers need to be re-engineered for higher thermal densities. With ThinkSystem N1380 Neptune and the new ThinkSystem SC777 V4 Neptune, Lenovo is pioneering data centers in which 100KW+ server racks are running without the need for specialized data center air conditioning. The innovation is pivotal in advancing new data center designs that support more dense iron and repurpose power for cooling in the age of AI.  

“For more than a decade, Lenovo has pioneered liquid cooling innovations, with the goal of bringing the power of high-performance computing to every organization,” said Lenovo Chairman and CEO Yuanqing Yang. “Through groundbreaking liquid-cooling engineering and technology integration, ThinkSystem N1380 Neptune is unlocking a new era of data center efficiency and design that will help bring NVIDIA Blackwell and trillion-parameter AI to all, while fundamentally changing how power is used in the data center.” 

With ThinkSystem N1380 Neptune, data center power is maximized for AI and research, not for system cooling. The revolutionary technology uses a reimagined vertical liquid cooling chassis to deliver accelerated computing with advanced efficiency in a compact system that is 100% liquid cooled, eliminating the need for power-consuming fans. Designed for industry standard 19-inch racks, organizations of any size can now leverage the highest accelerated computing available one tray at a time using standard power in an open ecosystem.   

“The NVIDIA Blackwell platform is the engine to power generative AI and define a new industrial revolution,” said Bob Pette, Vice President of Enterprise Platforms at NVIDIA. “With the breakthrough capabilities of Lenovo ThinkSystem N1380 Neptune and NVIDIA GB200, we’re supporting the world’s most technologically advanced accelerated workloads while massively reducing operation costs and energy consumption to help realize the promise of AI for every industry.” 

The ThinkSystem SC777 V4 Neptune supports the next-generation NVIDIA Quantum-X800 InfiniBand  and Spectrum-X800 Ethernet platforms for high-performance accelerated networking. In addition, the ThinkSystem SC777 V4 Neptune supports NVIDIA AI Enterprise, a cloud-native software platform that streamlines development and deployment of production-grade AI solutions, including generative AI, computer vision, and speech AI. 

Bringing NVIDIA GB200 to the Enterprise Market with 100% Heat Removal2 

Lenovo will deliver NVIDIA GB200 rack systems that supercharge AI training, data processing, engineering design and simulation. Featuring open-loop, direct warm-water cooling for the entire NVIDIA GB200 Grace Blackwell system architecture with NVIDIA NVLink interconnect, enterprise customers of any size can use the Lenovo ThinkSystem SC777 V4 Neptune to run trillion-parameter AI models that bring products to market faster, at lower cost and with higher energy efficiency. 

With the advanced water cooling, the new ThinkSystem server allows critical components to operate at lower temperatures and effectively removes all heat from all components, including GPUs, memory, I/O, local storage, and voltage regulators. Combined, the innovations enable AI training and real-time LLM inference for models scaling up to 10 trillion parameters while increasing performance, energy-efficiency, and reliability in a compact, ultra-quiet system.  

The Next Cool Era of Lenovo Neptune: Scalable HPC and AI Supercomputer  

Lenovo helps organizations deploy high-performance AI at any scale. Scaling from a compact 13U enclosure to full racks, rows, and datacenters, the ThinkSystem N1380 Neptune features eight tray slots, four 15kW power conversion stations, with a sophisticated Neptune water flow distribution, all elegantly packaged for optimal space, power, and cooling efficiency:  

• Maximized Standard Form Factor: Engineered from the ground up to provide the additional space needed without breaking data center standards, N1380 maintains scalability to make the newest and highest performing technologies available to customers of every size. 

• Reduced Power Consumption: The unique design eliminates the need for internal airflow and power-consuming fans, reducing power consumption by up to 40% compared with similar air-cooled systems in a typical data center. Rack insulation also significantly minimizes radiant heat. 

• Cutting-Edge Power Conversion Station (PCS): Beyond the Neptune water-cooling infrastructure, the N1380 enclosure houses up to four ThinkSystem 15kW Titanium Power Conversion Stations (PCS), supplying internal system power to a 48V busbar. This innovative design merges power conversion, rectification, and distribution into a single PCS, a departure from traditional setups that demand separate units, resulting in best-in-class efficiency. 

• Reliable Cooling: N1380 features an integrated manifold with a patented blind-mate mechanism and aerospace-grade dripless connectors to the compute trays for safer operation.  

• Complete Heat Removal: With enhanced waterflow safety, the efficient connections facilitate 100 percent heat removal.  

• Power Repurposed: Neptune is designed to operate at water inlet temperatures as low as the dew point allows, up to 45°C, which eliminates the need for additional chilling and allows for efficient reuse of the generated heat for building heat or adsorption chilling cold water generation. 

Over A Decade of Liquid Cooling Leadership 

Lenovo Neptune™ has led the world in liquid cooling technology for more than a decade, using a pioneering method to remove heat and reduce power consumption compared with traditional air-cooled systems. With more than 40 patents and the most widely used liquid cooling platform around the world3, Lenovo has  finetuned its liquid cooling technology with revolutionary engineering. Lenovo Neptune utilizes state-of-the-art materials, including custom brazed copper water loops and patented CPU cold plates, for full system water-cooling. Unlike systems that use low-quality FEP plastic, Neptune also features durable stainless steel and reliable EPDM hoses.  

Global Network of Lenovo AI Support  

To help realize the promise of AI for every industry, the 6th generation Lenovo Neptune is available throughout the end-to-end hybrid AI portfolio of Lenovo servers, solutions, and services. 

Businesses can build, scale and evolve private AI faster with new GPU resources on demand, AI-driven systems management and advanced liquid cooling services that optimize Lenovo Neptune for your environment. Lenovo TruScale GPUaaS, delivers lightning-fast GPU power on demand through the simplicity of a scalable, pay-as-you go model, while Lenovo Power and Cooling Services help organizations reduce the complexity of optimizing demanding AI workloads. Lenovo TruScale GPUaaS will be available for a wide range of NVIDIA Tensor Core GPU options, from NVIDIA H100 Tensor Core and L40S to the NVIDIA GB200 with liquid cooling. This accelerates the availability of NVIDIA accelerated computing to enable rapid real-world innovation, making AI use cases in the enterprise more accessible.  

Through virtual content that can be explored anytime, Tech World ‘24 was live-streamed across multiple time zones and hosted on-demand following the main broadcast. To learn more about Lenovo hybrid AI solutions, including ThinkSystem N1380 Neptune and see a full agenda of speakers, please visit Lenovo Tech World ’24.  

LENOVO, THINKSYSTEM and NEPTUNE are trademarks of Lenovo. NVIDIA is a trademark of NVIDIA Corporation, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. ©2024 Lenovo Group Limited.