Quantum #96

We got a new Blackwell GPU powered VM from AWS, spot pricing from IBM Cloud and curiously a really good article on spot pricing in clouds too this week.

If you already use spot pricing, the article by Alero Awani is definitely worth a read, especially if you want to understand how different CSPs approach their spot offering. If you’re not already using spot you should probably read it so you can start using it!

We put out the first of two articles about optimising HPC and AI workload. I get the feeling this year will either result AI providers learning some core lessons in HPC and driving up their utilisation rates to something sensible, or a rather unpleasant reality check in providing heavily subsidized compute.

All this and more below.

In The News

Updates from the big three clouds on all things HPC including IBM Cloud giving us spot pricing.

HPC Cloud Updates WE 25 Jan 2026

Updates to AWS, Azure & GCP in the last week relevant for HPC practitioners. We get new RTX PRO 6000 VMs from AWS and whole new Google Cloud region this week and IBM Cloud gives us spot pricing.

Flux by HMx LabsHamza

A history and analysis of the spot compute market on the major cloud providers by Alero Awani. This doesn’t include IBM Cloud (as it just got released!) but is a really great in-depth analysis and worth reading if you run your HPC workloads on spot. (Yes, of course it’s there to promote Rackspace but it still great!)

History of Spot Instances

An in-depth exploration of Spot Instance history, examining how pricing models evolved and why those changes matter for reliability, cost, and cloud strategy.

Rackspace Spot Logo

This article about Intel ends by encouraging Intel to copy AMD! How times have changed. What surprised me more though was that fact that Intel hasn’t been able to meet demand for its Xeon processors. Interesting

Intel Is Still Struggling In The Datacenter, But It Could Get Better

Intel has been pushing its two-core server CPU strategy for so long, in one form or another, that we have become accustomed to differentiating products

The Next PlatformTimothy Prickett Morgan

Looks like we’re not the only ones trying to see if vibe coding can be used for something real

https://www.hpcwire.com/2026/01/23/can-vibe-coding-work-for-science-argonne-puts-the-idea-to-the-test/

From HMx Labs

The first couple of articles in a mini series about improving HPC & AI utilisation. Getting more out of your existing kit is always good

Improving Utilisation in HPC & AI – Part 1

The first in a mini series exploring tips on how to improve utilisation rates of your HPC and AI compute resources

Flux by HMx LabsHamza

Improving Utilisation in HPC & AI – Part 2

Part 2 of how to get more from your expensive HPC and AI compute resources without spending more money

Flux by HMx LabsHamza

You’re still welcome to provide input to our little vibe coding experiment

AI First Coding in HPC

Trying to answer the question: Can AI write mission critical high performance code.

Flux by HMx LabsHamza

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