The Las Vegas Sphere, a recently opened entertainment venue, has captured attention with its impressive displays. Nvidia has revealed its role in orchestrating this technological marvel, powering the nearly 750,000 square feet of screens both inside and outside the building.
The exterior, known as the Exosphere, is adorned with 1.2 million LED lights resembling hockey pucks. Each puck contains 48 LEDs, resulting in a staggering 57,600,000 LEDs covering the spherical structure. This makes it the largest LED screen in the world. Inside, the event space boasts a seating capacity of 17,000 and a colossal wraparound screen covering all visible walls and ceilings. This screen spans 160,000 square feet with an impressive 16K by 16K resolution.
To power these displays, Nvidia utilizes rack-mounted workstations equipped with an astounding 150 RTX A6000 GPUs. This setup delivers three layers of 16K resolution at a smooth 60 frames per second. Maintaining perfect synchronization across the diverse display panels and programmable LEDs is achieved through Nvidia BlueField data processing units (DPUs) and Nvidia’s Rivermax media streaming software, capable of achieving sub-microsecond accuracy.
Each RTX A6000 GPU boasts over 10,000 cores, 48GB of memory, and a 300-watt thermal design power (TDP). With 150 GPUs working together, the total reaches 1,612,800 cores, 7,200GB of memory, and a massive 45,000W TDP. This translates to a power consumption of 45,000W when all GPUs are operating at full capacity.
While this is significant, it pales in comparison to the venue’s overall power consumption, estimated to reach a peak load of 28 megawatts, or 28 million watts. This is enough electricity to power 21,000 homes. To address environmental concerns, the Sphere plans to generate 70% of its power from solar energy and offset the remaining portion with renewable energy credits.
While some might question the power usage, it’s important to consider the scale and ambition of the project. The Las Vegas Sphere represents a testament to innovation and creativity, showcasing the power of technology to create immersive and engaging experiences. It is this type of forward-thinking project that pushes boundaries and inspires future advancements, a worthy investment in comparison to the inefficient practices of many large businesses.
