Three computer makers have decided to combine Nvidia graphics processors with ARM-based CPU cores for high performance computing — a first for the ARM architecture that has so far dominated the cell phone market. Cirrascale (pictured above), E4 and Eurotech are all building machines that will use the Applied Micro X-Gene boards in conjunction with a nearby GPU to handle the types of performance-heavy workloads popular in the oil and gas, scientific and industrial design industries.

Nvidia has opened up its CUDA code that lets developers compile their code to run on GPUs as a means to get ARM cores into the HPC sector. The combination of a GPU and an Intel x86 processor has become more common in supercomputing, in part because GPUs can do more work per watt than an x86 processor. As supercomputers grow in performance, they are also sucking up far too much energy, leading experts…