In this podcast, Radio Free HPC looks at a recent report that the USA needs to take aggresive action to keep up with China in High Performance Computing. Produced by the NSA-DOE Technical Meeting on High Performance Computing, the report states that we need to change course now or the U.S. will lose leadership and not control its own future in HPC.
Highlights include:
- HPC plays a vital role in the design, development or analysis of many – perhaps almost all – modern weapon systems and national security systems: e.g., nuclear weapons, cyber, ships, aircraft, encryption, missile defense, precision strike capability, and hypersonics.
- Loss of leadership in HPC could significantly reduce the U.S. nuclear deterrence and the sophistication of our future weapons systems. Conversely, if China fields a weapons system with new capabilities based on superior HPC, and the U.S. cannot accurately estimate its true capabilities, there is a serious possibility of over- or underestimating the threat.
- A loss of leadership will be felt beyond the HPC vendor community, which would be significantly impaired: HPC resources are required for the development of a variety of military, scientific, and industrial capabilities. Loss of a U.S. leading position would threaten our ability to compete internationally in all of these fields.
- To maintain U.S. leadership in HPC, a surge of USG investment and action is needed to address HPC priorities.
Download the report on U.S. Leadership in High Performance Computing (PDF)
After that, Dan does our Catch of the Week:
- The Big Storage Requirements of Virtual Reality: If this stuff takes off as predicted, storage is going to be a major challenge.
- Apple is not keeping up with the high end of professional workstations: A recent study showed that $10K spent on the latest technologies will leave Apple in the dust in terms of performance.
- The USB Kill Stick we discussed recently has been upgraded with three times the capacity to destroy your laptop.
