China supercomputer to be world's fastest (again) - Tianhe-2

It seems that China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer will confirmed as the world's fastest supercomputer at next Top500 list to be revealed at the ISC'13 conference next week.

I was going to write about the Chinese Tianhe-2 supercomputer and how it matters to the USA and Europe - then I found these old blog posts of mine:

• Why does the China supercomputer matter to western governments?
• Comparing HPC across China, USA and Europe

A review of 2012 in supercomputing - Part 1

It's that time of year when doing a review of the last twelve months seems like a good idea for a blog topic. (To be followed soon after by a blog of predictions for the next year.)
So, here goes - my review of the year 2012 in supercomputing and related matters. Thoroughly biased, of course, towards things that interested me throughout the year.


Predictions for 2012

Towards the end of 2011 and in early 2012 I made various predictions about HPC in 2012. Here are the ones I can find or recall:

• The use of "cloud computing" as the preferred marketing buzzword used for large swathes of the HPC product space would come to an end.
• There would be an onslaught of "Big Data" (note the compulsory capital letters) as the marketing buzzword of choice for 2012 - to be applied to as many HPC products as possible - even if only a tenuous relevance (just like cloud computing before it - and green computing before that - and so on ...)
• There would be a vigorous ongoing debate over the relative merits and likely success of GPUs (especially from NVidia) vs. Intel's MIC (now called Xeon Phi).
• ARM would become a common part of the architecture debate alongside x86 and accelerators.
• There would be a growth in the recognition that software and people matter just as much as the hardware.

The power of supercomputers - energy, exascale and elevators

Paul Henning has written on his blog (HPC Ruminations) about the growing issue of power requirements for large scale computing. Paul's blog post - "Familiarity Breeds Complacency" - is partly in response to my article at HPCwire - "Exascale: power is not the problem" and my follow-up disucssion on here - "Supercomputers and other large science facilities".

Paul makes several good points and his post is well worth reading. He ends with an observation that I've noted before (in my own words):

One of supercomputing's biggest strengths - it's ability to help almost all areas of science and engineering - is also one of it's greatest weaknesses - because there a portfolio of cases rather than a single compelling champion to drive attention and investment.

PS - I've added Paul's new blog to my list of HPC blogs and news sites.

What is this HPC thing?

[Originally posted on The NAG Blog]


I’m sure something like this is familiar to many readers of this blog. The focus here is HPC, but there is a similar story for mathematicians, numerical software engineeers, etc.


You've just met an old acquaintance. Or a family member is curious. Or at social events (when social means talking to real people not twitter/facebook). We see that question coming. We panic. Then the family/friend/stranger, asks it. We freeze. How to reply? Can I get a meaningful, ideally interesting, answer out before they get bored? What if I fail to get the message across correctly? Oops, this pause before answering has gone on too long. Now they are looking at me strangely. They are thinking the answer is embarrassing or weird. This is not a good start.


The question? “What do you do then?” Followed by: “Oh! So what exactly is supercomputing then?”

Comparing HPC across China, USA and Europe

[Originally posted on The NAG Blog]

In my earlier blog post today on China announcing the world's faster supercomputer, I said I'd be back with more later on the comparisons with the USA, Europe and others. In this morning's blog, I made the point that the world's fastest supercomputer, in itself, is not world changing. But leading supercomputers, critically matched with appropriate expertise in programming and using them, togther with the vision to ensure use across basic research, industry and defence applications can indeed be strategically beneficial to a nation - including real economic impact.



There are plenty of reports and studies describing the strategic impact of HPC within a given organisation or at national levels (some are catalogued by IDC here), so let's take it as a premise for the following thoughts.

Why does the China supercomputer matter to western governments?

[Originally posted on The NAG Blog]

There is a lot of fuss in the mainstream media (BBC, FT, CNET, even the Daily Mail!) the last few days about the world's fastest supercomputer being in China for the first time. And much ado on Twitter (me too - @hpcnotes).



But much of the mainstream reporting, twitter-fest, and blogging is missing the point I think. China deploying the world's fastest supercomputer is news (the fastest supercomputer has almost always been American for decades, with the occasional Japanese crown). But the machine alone is not the big news.

Is power-hungry supercomputing OK now?

[Article by me on ZDNet UK, 23 September, 2010]

We may be planning for a 1,000-fold increase in compute power in the next decade, but what about the extra power consumption ...

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/emerging-tech/2010/09/23/is-power-hungry-supercomputing-ok-now-40090137/

2009-2019: A Look Back on a Decade of Supercomputing

[Article by me for HPCwire, December 15, 2009]

As we turn the decade into the 2020s, we take a nostalgic look back at the last ten years of supercomputing. It's amazing to think how much has changed in that time.

http://www.hpcwire.com/features/2009-2019-A-Look-Back-on-a-Decade-of-Supercomputing-79351812.html?viewAll=y

Tough choices for supercomputing's legacy apps

[Article by me on ZDNet UK, 12 November, 2009]

The prospect of hundreds of petaflops and exascale computing raises tricky issues for legacy apps ...

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/it-strategy/2009/11/12/tough-choices-for-supercomputings-legacy-apps-39869521/

Should programming supercomputers be hard?

[Article by me on ZDNet UK, 1 October, 2009]

Those who glibly argue for easier programming of supercomputers are broaching a complex issue ...

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/it-strategy/2009/10/01/should-programming-supercomputers-be-hard-39763731/