New encoding using cost-effective NVIDIA GPUs
enables optimal processing for media companies
LAS
VEGAS, April 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Akamai
Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), the cloud company that powers
and protects life online, added a new media-optimized offering
based on NVIDIA GPUs to its growing cloud portfolio. With the
NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation GPU, the new cloud-based service
provides better productivity and economics for companies in the
media and entertainment industry that are challenged with
processing video content faster and more efficiently.
Internal benchmarking conducted by Akamai demonstrated that
GPU-based encoding using the NVIDIA RTX 4000 processes frames per
second (FPS) 25x faster than traditional CPU-based encoding and
transcoding methods, which presents a significant advancement in
the way streaming service providers address their typical workload
challenges.
Using Akamai's offering, media and entertainment companies can
build scalable, resilient architectures and deploy workloads that
will be faster, more reliable, and portable, while taking advantage
of the world's most distributed cloud platform and integrated
content delivery and security services.
"Media companies need low-latency, reliable compute resources
that maintain the portability of the workloads they create," said
Shawn Michels, Vice President of
Cloud Products at Akamai. "NVIDIA GPUs provide superior price
performance when deployed on Akamai's global edge platform.
Together with our Qualified Compute Partners and open platform, we
give our customers the capability to architect their next-gen
workloads to be cloud agnostic and support multicloud
architectures."
The need for industry optimized GPUs
In a market hyper-focused on using NVIDIA GPUs to support large
language modeling, Akamai's media-tailored GPU service homes in on
an industry underserved by current industry offerings, which can be
expensive. Building on its rich heritage and deep experience in the
space, Akamai fine-tuned its new GPU offering to meet the demanding
and specific requirements of the media and entertainment
industry.
Use cases
The NVIDIA RTX 4000 GPU achieves the speed and power efficiency
necessary to tackle demanding creative, design, and engineering
workflows for digital content creation, 3D modeling, rendering,
inferencing, and video content and streaming. Media-specific use
cases include:
- Video transcoding and live video streaming: GPUs
can perform faster-than-real-time transcoding of live video
streams, improving the streaming experience by reducing buffering
and even playback, while GPU-based encoding improves efficiency and
reduces processing times compared with traditional CPU-based
transcoding. The NVIDIA RTX 4000 GPU is equipped with the
latest-generation NVIDIA NVENC and NVDEC hardware, which enables
additional capacity for simultaneous encoding and decoding tasks.
This is critical for applications requiring high-throughput video
processing, such as live streaming. The eighth-generation NVENC
engines provide support for the latest video codecs, including the
highly efficient AV1 codec, which enables higher-quality video at
lower bitrates.
- Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)
content: VR and AR applications require the rendering of
3D graphics and multimedia content in real time. GPUs are ideal for
processing such content.
While Akamai optimized the new solution for the media market,
the new offering also has applicability for developers and
companies looking to build apps tied to several other industry use
cases, including:
- Generative artificial intelligence and machine learning (Gen
AI/ML): One of the primary applications of GPU cloud
computing is in generative AI/ML. GPUs are well-suited for tasks
such as training and inference with neural networks, as they can
perform many calculations in parallel, which allows faster and more
efficient training of new models, which can lead to better accuracy
and performance. The NVIDIA RTX 4000 GPU harnesses the NVIDIA Ada
Lovelace architecture to deliver exceptional performance in
inferencing tasks. A total of 192 fourth-generation Tensor Cores
accelerate more data types and include a new Fine-Grained
Structured Sparsity feature for up to 4x the throughput for tensor
matrix operations when compared with the previous generation. The
inclusion of 20 GB of GDDR6 memory provides extensive capacity for
large models and datasets.
- Data analysis and scientific computing: GPU cloud
computing is also commonly used in data analysis and scientific
computing because of the nature of its tasks, which often involve
processing large amounts of data. These tasks are time-consuming
and computationally intensive. GPUs can help accelerate these tasks
by processing large amounts of data in parallel, which enables
faster and more efficient analysis and simulation.
- Gaming and graphics rendering: GPUs are widely used
in the gaming industry, mainly for graphics rendering and other
tasks related to video game development. This is because GPUs are
designed to handle complex graphics processing and can provide
fast, high-quality rendering of 3D graphics.
- High-performance computing: GPU-enabled cloud computing
is commonly used for high-performance computing applications, such
as modeling and simulation, that require fast and efficient
processing of large amounts of data. GPUs can also be used to
accelerate simulations, calculations, and other computationally
intensive tasks, which leads to faster results and better
performance.
"In order to support a wide range of workloads, you need a wide
array of compute instances," continued Michels. "What we're doing
with industry-optimized GPUs is one of many steps we're taking for
our customers to increase instance diversity across the entire
continuum of compute to drive and power edge native
applications."
Akamai at the 2024 NAB Show
Akamai will show its range
of cloud-based media delivery solutions at the 2024 NAB Show in the
Akamai Lounge (meeting space W235LMR, Level 2) April 14–17, in
Las Vegas. Demonstrations will
also include integrations with Akamai Qualified Compute Partners,
which allow video service providers to select and run media
workflow capabilities on Akamai Connected Cloud, the world's most
distributed platform for cloud computing, security, and content
delivery.
Akamai is also hosting a Lunch & Learn session during which
partners Ateme, Hydrolix, and Yospace will share how they are
building next-generation media workflows on the Akamai distributed
cloud computing platform. The event takes place Tuesday, April 16, from 11 AM–12:30 PM PT, in the
Akamai Lounge. Visit the registration page for more
information and to reserve a space.
About Akamai
Akamai powers and protects life online.
Leading companies worldwide choose Akamai to build, deliver, and
secure their digital experiences — helping billions of people live,
work, and play every day. Akamai Connected Cloud, a massively
distributed edge and cloud platform, puts apps and experiences
closer to users and keeps threats farther away. Learn more about
Akamai's cloud computing, security, and content delivery solutions
at akamai.com and akamai.com/blog, or follow Akamai
Technologies on X, formerly known as Twitter,
and LinkedIn.
Chris Nicholson
Akamai Media Relations
+1.508.517.3703
cnichols@akamai.com
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SOURCE Akamai Technologies