AI and supercomputing converge at SC26: What Dell, Google and Nvidia are building

The intersection of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing is reshaping how enterprises approach infrastructure. Exascale computing, accelerated systems, data storage and high-speed networking are driving this convergence, with major technology vendors including Dell Technologies Inc., Google LLC and Nvidia Corp. investing heavily in the space. SC26, taking place in Chicago from Nov. 17–19, will serve as a gathering point for industry participants to discuss how these two domains are evolving together.

"SC26 provides an important opportunity to examine how the convergence of AI, high-performance computing and application development are reshaping enterprise infrastructure priorities," said theCUBE Research's Paul Nashawaty. "Organizations must connect high-performance infrastructure, accessible data and modern application development to move beyond experimentation and accelerate production-ready AI deployments. For Dell and the broader HPC ecosystem, SC26 offers a platform to demonstrate how integrated compute, storage and AI infrastructure can address these challenges."

TheCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media's livestreaming studio, will provide on-site coverage and exclusive interviews from SC26. The coverage will examine how supercomputing's trajectory is being shaped at the intersection of exascale systems and AI infrastructure, with particular focus on how accelerated computing is transforming research environments. Discussions will also explore quantum-HPC integration and agentic AI as drivers of scientific discovery.

Quantum and high-performance computing

Dell and Nvidia have been collaborating with the U.S. Department of Energy to construct the Doudna supercomputer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The system will incorporate Nvidia's Vera Rubin CPU-GPU platform and Quantum-X800 InfiniBand networking within Dell's integrated rack systems and PowerEdge servers, enabling large-scale scientific computing and data-intensive research.

In September, Dell announced a partnership with silicon-spin qubit developer Diraq aimed at integrating quantum processing units with HPC and AI server infrastructure. This collaboration seeks to combine quantum processors with classical computing systems in commercial data centers.

"The market for high-performance computing is meeting the AI factory at the point of innovation," said theCUBE Research's Dave Vellante. "HPC has always led the most challenging data problems, so this trend makes perfect sense. Quantum will be the next big inflection point and we're seeing that new technologies are often complementary to existing infrastructure. We expect that to be the case between accelerated computing and quantum, particularly in the area of error correction."

New system architectures drive supercomputing

Google Cloud is developing systems to address HPC requirements across manufacturing, health care, life sciences, weather forecasting and electronic design automation. The company's H4D VM, introduced last year, represents a key component of this effort. Built on fifth-generation AMD EPYC processors, the H4D VM delivers whole-node VM performance exceeding 12,000 GFLOPS with memory bandwidth surpassing 950 GB/s.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration demonstrates HPC's expanding role in practical applications. In July, Google Cloud was selected as the primary provider of high-performance computing infrastructure for the Weather and Climate Operational Supercomputing System, enabling meteorologists and researchers to develop advanced forecasting models.

"Systems are the key in supercomputing advances," said theCUBE Research's John Furrier. "Different architectures. Different bets. Same underlying problem: How do you keep the multiplication engines doing useful work instead of waiting for data? That's why I think the next era of AI infrastructure won't be defined by the 'best chip.' It will be defined by the best system architecture."

Platforms for cloud and analytics

Beyond the major vendors, other firms are advancing the HPC landscape. Vultr Inc. is constructing high-performance cloud computing infrastructure for AI, risk management, compliance and fraud prevention. The company is expanding its platform across 33 global regions by deploying CPUs, GPUs and open, composable architectures to establish itself as a cloud infrastructure provider in the agentic AI space.

The growth of HPC is creating demand for consistent data sharing and access mechanisms. Omni Analytics Inc. is developing a data collaboration platform that integrates directly with cloud data warehouses without requiring data preloading or duplication.

"As organizations invest in increasingly sophisticated AI environments, the competitive differentiator will be the ability to optimize the entire technology stack from data movement and storage performance to application development and deployment," Nashawaty said. "The central SC26 narrative is that the future of AI supercomputing will be defined not simply by how much compute organizations deploy, but by how effectively they translate that investment into measurable business and scientific outcomes."