The Infrastructure of Modern Data Centers

Modern data center infrastructure is facing increasing pressure on the memory front. More demanding workloads require constantly increasing amounts of DRAM, in a context where high demand has made this component both scarce and expensive. According to various industry analyses, it has become the main item of expenditure in the setup of server systems.

To address this bottleneck, AMD has announced the acquisition of MEXT, a startup that has developed memory optimization technology based on predictive artificial intelligence algorithms. The stated goal is to enable NAND Flash memory to function — at least in functional terms — like DRAM, expanding usable memory capacity without having to proportionally increase the amount of physically installed RAM.

The principle behind MEXT's solution is that of intelligent memory tiering. The software analyzes in real-time which data in DRAM is