The growing imperative of ESG- and carbon-related issues in the HPC industry – and in IT generally – is the topic of this week’s @HPCpodcast episode (sponsored by Lenovo). Shahin and Doug speak with Adrian Cockcroft, an analyst colleague of Shahin’s at OrionX and former vice president of sustainability architecture at Amazon Web Services, where he helped customers apply sustainability practices to their businesses. The good news shared by Adrian is that Big Tech companies and IT in general are decarbonizing more effectively than had been expected a few years ago. Even as systems become denser and hotter, data centers increasingly are adopting renewable energy sources, liquid cooling and other measures that reduce usage of carbon-based energy sources. He tells us that on a per-watts basis, the IT industry has plateaued – though, of course, total watts consumed continues to climb.
@HPCpodcast: Former AWS Sustainability VP on the State of Decarbonization in HPC and IT
@HPCpodcast: Ukraine’s Frontline Software Soldiers; the UK’s Exascale Strategy; House Hearing on Global Tech Leadership; Intel’s Revised Roadmap
Soon after the one-year observance (Feb. 24) of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Wall Street Journal ran an article by Shyam Sankar, CTO at big data and machine learning company Palantir, on the vital role of Ukrainian software engineers cum front line soldiers in the country’s war effort. It’s a remarkable story of technology entrepreneurship brought to the battlefield, one that helps explain how Ukraine, a country with less than 25 percent the population of Russia, has successfully pushed the invaders back from their early territorial gains. Sankar’s article compelled Shahin and Doug to reflect on the new type of war Ukraine is waging….
@HPCpodcast: The AI Gold Rush, Virtual Quantum, an Advance for Silicon Photonics and Nuclear Energy for Future Supercomputers
In what may become a regular segment of the @HPCpodcast, Shahin and Doug cover important recent developments in HPC and AI that signal changes in markets and policies. Always, we keep an eye on where these developments fit into the big picture, what it all means. This time, we look at what may be AI’s “iPhone moment” (you guessed it: ChatGPT) and the ensuing AI gold rush that’s been gaining massive investment momentum since about 2015, much to the happiness of NVIDIA shareholders; virtual quantum computers; and how advances in silicon photonics could change the chip – and therefore the technology – industry….
@HPCpodcast: Our Favorite 2023 Predictions, Puncturing the Myths of HPC and New Advanced Chips
In our opening episode of 2023, Shahin and Doug discuss the recent chip announcements from Intel and AMD and their implications for HPC. We also talk about are industry predictions for the year to come featured in this article on insideHPC — including the ones we think most interesting. We also discuss a recent paper from researchers in Japan and Europe — led by Satoshi Matsuoka of the RIKEN Center for Computation Science — on the 12 myths and legends of HPC, a buffet for thought.
@HPCpodcast: UC Berkeley’s and LBNL’s Kathy Yelick on Exascale, the Future of Supercomputing, Partitioned Global Address Space and Diversity in HPC
Today, on the eve of Exascale Day, the @HPCpodcast is delighted to have Kathy Yelick as our special guest to observe Oct. 18 (1018 – a billion billion calculations per second). Dr. Yelick is the Robert S. Pepper Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and the Vice Chancellor for Research at UC Berkeley, and Senior Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
@HPCpodcast: AWS, Sun, eBay, Netflix (and Others) Vet Adrian Cockcroft Talks Cloud HPC-AI and the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative
In our converesation with Adrian Cockcroft, we start with Netflix’s move to the cloud, a significant event that helped put cloud computing on the map. Then it’s on to Environment, Sustainability, and Governance (ESG), Formula-1 racing, and cloud configurations and interconnects for HPC and AI workloads. And we talk about accessing the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI) and its petabytes of data, including weather observations, ocean temperatures, climate projection data and satellite imagery, used by researchers and scientists….
Video: Major Market Shifts in IT
Shahin Khan from OrionX gave this talk at the Stanford HPC Conference. “We will discuss the digital infrastructure of the future enterprise and the state of these trends. OrionX works with clients on the impact of Digital Transformation on them, their customers, and their messages. Generally, they want to track, in one place, trends like IoT, 5G, AI, Blockchain, and Quantum Computing. And they want to know what these trends mean, how they affect each other, and when they demand action, and how to formulate and execute an effective plan. If that describes you, we can help.”
Registration Opens for Stanford HPC Conference Virtual Event
Registration is now open for the Stanford HPC Conference. The two day ‘condensed’ agenda combines thought leadership and practical insights on HPC, AI, Data Science and much more. The virtual event takes place April 21-22. “The Stanford High Performance Computing Center in collaboration with the HPC-AI Advisory Council invite you to join the annual Stanford Conference as an entirely virtual experience.”
SC19 Cluster Competition: Students Pack LINs and HPCG’s
In this special guest feature, Dan Olds from OrionX.net continues his series of stories on the SC19 Student Cluster Competition. Held as part of the Students@SC program, the competition is designed to introduce the next generation of students to the high-performance computing community. “Nanyang Tech took home the Highest LINPACK Award at the recently concluded SC19 Student Cluster Competition. The team, also known as the Pride of Singapore (at least to me), easily topped the rest of the field with their score of 51.74 Tflop/s.”
Epic HPC Road Trip stops at NERSC for a look at Big Network and Storage Challenges
In this special guest feature, Dan Olds from OrionX continues his Epic HPC Road Trip series with a stop at NERSC. “NERSC is unusual in that they receive more data than they send out. Client agencies process their raw data on NERSC systems and then export the results to their own organizations. This puts a lot of pressure on storage and network I/O, making them top priority at NERSC.”
