“This is pretty bad news for AMD,” said David Kanter of Real World Technologies.
Bolding, however, was adamant that the “strong partnership” with Intel would not affect Cray’s relationship with either AMD or Nvidia, both of whose chips it uses in its current and upcoming systems.
Cray is currently building out its Titan supercomputer based on the Cray X6 at Oakridge, which uses both AMD and Nvidia chips, while its Blue Waters system is based on the Cray Xe6 and is also largely dependent on AMD processors.
“It may not impact the relationship, but the systems AMD had were largely fabric driven, so if the fabric is now an Intel fabric, it’s not good news [for AMD],” said Kanter, adding that it was a “big converged interconnect play” by Intel.