WAYNE, PA — Super Micro Computer, Inc. (SMCI) and Cornelis Networks have validated a high-performance infrastructure pairing aimed at data centers struggling to scale artificial intelligence and high-performance computing workloads under tightening power and cooling limits.
The companies said Supermicro’s liquid-cooled FlexTwin server platforms are now fully validated with Cornelis’ CN5000 400 Gbps networking, creating a deployment option designed to deliver higher compute density and faster workload completion without proportionally increasing energy use or infrastructure costs.
As AI model training, advanced simulation, and data-heavy research expand, data centers increasingly face constraints that are no longer tied to processor capability. Power availability, thermal management, and network congestion have become the primary bottlenecks, often limiting real-world performance even as chips grow faster.
Supermicro executives said the validated integration is intended to address those constraints directly. Vik Malyala, president and managing director EMEA and senior vice president of technology and AI at Supermicro, said pairing FlexTwin with CN5000 networking gives customers a way to accelerate demanding AI and HPC workloads while avoiding trade-offs in power consumption or system stability.
Cornelis Networks Chief Executive Officer Lisa Spelman said infrastructure requirements for modern AI and simulation have shifted, with network scalability and energy efficiency now determining how far clusters can grow. She said combining liquid-cooled server architecture with high-speed, predictable networking offers customers a practical path to scaling performance without the traditional penalties tied to power, cost, and operational complexity.
The CN5000 platform is designed to reduce communication delays by delivering congestion-free data movement between servers, a factor that can significantly affect performance in large, tightly coupled clusters. Supermicro’s FlexTwin platform addresses thermal constraints through a dense liquid-cooling design that captures up to 95 percent of system heat, allowing stable operation in power-limited data centers. Cornelis said its CN5000 portfolio also supports both air-cooled and liquid-cooled switches, along with air-cooled and conduction-cooled SuperNIC options, giving operators flexibility across different facility designs.
Joint testing across manufacturing, physics, life sciences, and climate modeling workloads showed measurable gains, according to the companies. Results included up to 1.5 times higher application performance compared with competing 400 Gbps network fabrics, an average 29 percent improvement in performance per networking dollar, and up to 2.3 times higher performance per watt in liquid-cooled configurations. The tests also showed improved scaling efficiency as clusters expanded, reducing the typical performance degradation seen in large deployments.
The companies said those gains can allow operators to complete larger workloads faster, deploy fewer nodes for equivalent performance, and remain within fixed power budgets as AI and HPC demands continue to grow.
Supermicro said the FlexTwin platform with Cornelis CN5000 networking is available immediately through Supermicro and authorized Cornelis partners.
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