The rapid growth of AI – along with other modern technologies – is feeding an insatiable demand for data centres worldwide. According to research by Statista, the total amount of data created, captured, copied and consumed globally in 2020 was 64.2 zettabytes. Leading up to 2025, global data creation is projected to grow to more than 180 zettabytes. (For an idea of just how mind-bogglingly large that number is, one zettabyte is equal to a trillion gigabytes.)
The need of organisations to meet the increased power requirements of high-performance computing has spurred several innovations in the field of data centre design and technology
One pioneering solution at the forefront of this transformation is Kove’s Software-Defined Memory (Kove:SDM™), a solution that enables enterprises to maximise the performance of their people and infrastructure.
Kove:SDM™ is a breakthrough technology that allows individual servers to draw from a common memory pool on a scale way beyond that possible using a physical server. Crucially, this means each job receives exactly the memory it needs.
Kove’s Founder and CEO John Overton describes this process as ‘memory virtualisation’, and says it is playing a crucial role in advancing computing capabilities – a feat that for decades has proven too tough a nut for conventional approaches to crack.
“Memory is the last component to have been virtualised, made generic and commodified in the way that every other facet of computing has been,” Overton explains. He adds that the company has spent five years on “hardcore R&D” before engaging in a disciplined, decade-long development effort to address the memory wall through a software-only approach.
“We took a look around and saw that nobody had any idea how to do it,” he says. “We tried everything that everybody else had done, and failed repeatedly, but then we cracked the code, and here we are today. We've been doing extremely high-end computing for a long time and have worked our tails off to get here.”
Kove was founded 20 years ago with a mission to “think differently about what could be done with computing”, says Overton, who adds that today, the company is home to “passionate software engineers and technologists committed to delivering the products and personalised services that enable every enterprise to reach its full potential”.
Founded as Econnectix Corporation in 2003, the company has a long history of fundamental scientific research in computing, evaluating theories and existing technologies at a foundational level. Since then the company has pioneered innovative solutions, changing its name to Kove in 2011 as it set its focus on solving modern computing’s most vexing problem – the limitations of memory.
Kove has set numerous world records and in 2019 premiered the world’s first patented and mature software-defined memory solution – Kove:SDM™ – after years of testing and validation.
Central to Kove’s offering is memory virtualisation, and it’s a technology that is badly needed by a power-hungry, tech-driven world. According to research by Boston Consulting Group, in 2022 the power used by US data centres was around 130 terawatt hours (TWh), which is set to increase to a gargantuan 390TWh in 2030 – the equivalent of almost 10% of the US’ total electricity consumption in 2023.
Driving this ever-increasing need for more juice is the mass-scale adoption of AI, and the role that data centres will play here cannot be overstated.
AI-capable chips draw considerably more power than their non-AI counterparts, and this is having a dramatic impact on the data centre landscape. According to Overton, memory has emerged as a “pivotal component” in tackling the challenges posed by escalating data centre workloads.
“AI has been coming for a long time,” he says. “But what people often don't realise is if you don't solve the memory problem, you don't get to go where AI can take you.”
Overton equates Kove’s focus on performance in modern computing with that of cost. “If you have a high level of performance you can adjust that performance to control costs, and with smaller costs comes modular control. In the world of data centres, Overton says such a scenario is “beautiful”.
“I think it's going to create a form of edge computing that we’ve not seen before,” an animated Overton says, “because of all the places you can't afford cost – where you can't amortise it across the infrastructure – is on the edge.
He adds: “Data centre people have been struggling to reduce costs for some time. Commodification has been one answer, but even that cannot work anymore.
“Now, people have needs that exceed the limits of what a data centre can physically hold, and the only way to do it is either to be more clever on the software stack or to control the memory surface.”
Read the full story HERE.
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