Learn how Lenovo and its partner ecosystem are helping to power multi-sensory immersive experiences at Sphere—the $2.3 billion venue changing the face of live entertainment.
Out-of-this-world experiences
Sphere is a truly unique entertainment venue. Standing 366 feet high and 516 feet wide to the east of the Las Vegas Strip, it’s the largest spherical structure on Earth. In fact, Sphere—and the 1.2 million LED tiles that light up its exterior—can be seen from space.
Both the exterior LEDs and the floor-to-ceiling, 16K resolution wraparound screens inside are fully programmable. Known as “the Exosphere,” the 360-degree digital display—along with an immersive sound system, 4D wind, temperature and scent effects, and haptic vibrating seats—offers audiences an immersive experience like no other.
Sphere is part of Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. (NYSE: MSGE) (“MSG Entertainment”)—a leader in live entertainment whose collection of world-renowned venues showcase a broad array of sporting events, concerts, family shows, and more for millions of guests annually. Lenovo has a strategic technology partnership with MSG and its family of companies.
Breathtaking visuals
At MSG Sphere Studios in Burbank, CA, production and technology teams work with creators, artists, and partners to create next-generation immersive content. The Burbank campus is home to a large, curved LED display that is a quarter-scale, full-resolution prototype of the Sphere Las Vegas screen. Known as “Big Dome,” this serves as a specialized screening and production facility, and as a lab for content.
To create such an immersive visual experience requires tremendous computing power. Enter Lenovo.
Much-needed processing power
Lenovo was chosen as the infrastructure provider to support content creation for Sphere and Lenovo ThinkSystem SR655 servers will drive the custom image processing software.
Hundreds of Lenovo ThinkSystem SR655 servers, powered by AMD EPYC™ processors and NVIDIA A40 GPUs, are used to develop and test original content and immersive experiences. AMD EPYC processors offer up to 128 PCIe 4.0 or 5.0 lanes, which is crucial for multi-GPU systems. Each GPU requires significant bandwidth, and the more GPUs connected, the more PCIe lanes are required. EPYC processors ensure that even in systems with many GPUs, there is enough PCIe bandwidth to avoid bottlenecks —making the Lenovo ThinkSystem SR655 the ideal blend of performance and efficiency to render cutting-edge visuals for the Exosphere.1
Choosing the right technologies
Lenovo’s strong technology partnerships with AMD and NVIDIA were an important selling point for Sphere. The combination of AMD EPYC processors and NVIDIA accelerated computing makes the Lenovo ThinkSystem SR655 a powerful and versatile server.
To enable robust networking connectivity for media streaming, NVIDIA BlueField DPUs and NVIDIA ConnectX-6 Dx NICs — along with the NVIDIA DOCA Firefly Service and NVIDIA Rivermax software were used — ensuring that all the display panels act as one synchronized canvas.
Lenovo, AMD, and NVIDIA collaborated closely to strategize on the best combination of products for MSG Sphere Studios’ use case, which ultimately delivered the optimal combination of price and performance.
In order to keep the project on schedule, the Lenovo team needed to meet very aggressive delivery timelines for the Lenovo ThinkSystem SR655 servers, including a two-day deadline for an initial test system. Lenovo coordinated with AMD and NVIDIA to ensure all the components were on site and assembled, ready for the Sphere team to test the server on schedule, demonstrating the company’s commitment to the project’s success while providing outstanding service and product performance.
Putting the plan into action
Lenovo worked with CDW to deliver a total of 450 ThinkSystem SR655 servers to MSG Sphere Studios in Burbank.
Thanks to its globally engineered supply chain, ranked 10th in the world by Gartner, Lenovo was able to deliver 50 servers per week to MSG Sphere Studios for six weeks straight to fulfill the initial order of 300 servers. Lenovo and CDW supported the installation, and Lenovo’s technical team helped MSG Sphere Studios to set up a remote management environment utilizing Lenovo XClarity software.2
Wowing audiences
Today, the Lenovo ThinkSystem SR655 servers help MSG Sphere Studios to render extremely high-resolution video content rapidly—from the immersive concert film for the U2:UV Achtung Baby Live at Sphere residency to the awe-inspiring visuals for Darren Aronofsky’s multi-sensory cinematic experience, Postcard From Earth.
Lenovo, AMD, and NVIDIA technology enable MSG Sphere Studios to create thematic content and immersive experiences for sporting events, too. Sphere recently hosted the Riyadh Season Noche UFC fight and the 2024 Upper Deck NHL Draft™. Sports and entertainment will never be the same again.
Click here to see the upcoming shows and events at Sphere. To learn more about Lenovo’s partnership with the MSG Family of Companies, click here.
1 The SR655 supports up to 6 single-wide GPUs, making it ideal for AI inference, virtualized desktop infrastructure (VDI), and other GPU-intensive applications.
2 Lenovo XClarity Administrator provides robust system management capabilities, allowing for efficient monitoring and handling of hardware alerts and events.
