Is GPI the Programming Tool for the Future of HPC?

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As the programming model du jour for HPC compute clusters, MPI has many limitations in terms of scalability and fault tolerance. With these requirements in mind, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute have developed a new programming interface called GPI that uses the parallel architecture of high-performance computers with maximum efficiency.

I was trying to solve a calculation and simulation problem related to seismic data,” says Dr. Carsten Lojewski from the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics ITWM. “But existing methods weren’t working. The problems were a lack of scalability, the restriction to bulk-synchronous, two-sided communication, and the lack of fault tolerance. So out of my own curiosity I began to develop a new programming model.”

GPI is based on a completely new approach: an asynchronous communication model, which is based on remote completion. With this approach, each processor can directly access all data – regardless of which memory it is on and without affecting other parallel processes. Together with Rui Machado, also from Fraunhofer ITWM, and Dr. Christian Simmendinger from T-Systems Solutions for Research, Dr. Carsten Lojewski is receiving a Joseph von Fraunhofer prize this year.

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