HPE vs Lenovo for NVIDIA AI servers.
Side by side from our vendor index: what each firm actually designs, which NVIDIA platforms it ships, and the identity facts that shape a procurement decision. Sources and full detail live on each profile.
HPE
HPE brings the Cray lineage to enterprise AI: genuine in-house direct-liquid-cooling engineering proven on exascale systems, applied to ProLiant and Cray XD NVIDIA platforms up to GB300 NVL72 scale. Strong where the buyer wants supercomputing discipline with OEM support.
- Cray supercomputing heritage (acquired 2019): the source of HPE's HPC and DLC engineering stack
- Industry's first 100% fanless direct liquid cooling architecture (Oct 2024): 8-element design covering GPU, CPU, blade, storage, fabric, rack, pod and CDU; claims 90% cooling-power reduction vs air
- Slingshot: proprietary Cray-developed interconnect used in DOE exascale systems
- iLO BMC: HPE designs its own iLO ASIC with silicon root of trust
Lenovo
Lenovo designs ThinkSystem AI servers around its Neptune liquid-cooling engineering, a genuinely in-house warm-water DLC capability it has iterated for over a decade. Global manufacturing footprint and aggressive pricing make it the usual third quote in enterprise deals.
- Lenovo Neptune: proprietary warm-water direct liquid cooling, now 6th generation; 5th gen claimed up to 40% lower power vs air
- ThinkSystem SR680a V4 described by Lenovo as designed fully in-house from the ground up
- Own chassis engineering: SC777 V4 uses a vertical 21-inch compute tray in the Lenovo-specific N1380 13U enclosure, not a stock NVIDIA reference chassis
- XClarity Controller: Lenovo's own BMC firmware across ThinkSystem
The right vendor depends on the workload, the facility and the timeline, not the brand. The assessment sizes both against your requirements and returns quoted pricing, with our margin disclosed.
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