Supercomputing 2010 (SC10), in New Orleans Louisiana, November 13–19, 2010, opens tomorrow. Supercomputers (now described as High Performance Computing) are slowly becoming mainstream. Hardware cost are plummeting, applications are becoming portable, and cloud connectivity is opening up access to new users.
The conference is buzzing with GPUs, cloud computing, and talk of exascale systems, 1000 times faster than today’s fastest machines.
Here are the Keynotes, Panels, Tutorials, Schedule, Exhibitors, and Press Releases.
Alongside multicore CPUs and cloud computing, the GPGPU is expected to shake things up. The rise of General-Purpose GPU computing will inexorably push graphics-flavored logic onto the CPU die, says Michael Feldman, editor of HPCwire.
The world’s fastest computer is China’s 2.5 petaflop machine, Tianhe-1A. It’s equipped with 14,336 Xeon X5670 processors and 7,168 Nvidia Tesla M2050 general purpose GPUs.
Nvidia’s Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA), introduced a new GPU programming tool kit in 2007, that enabled scientists to access GPUs with high-level programming languages such as C and Fortran.
IBM’s Blue Waters hopes to top it. Blue Waters will be installed at NCSA sometime in the first half of 2011. In 2012, the Blue Waters will be up and running a full range of scientific applications. IBM intends to have an exaflop supercomputer in a few years to support the Square Kilometre Array. It will be built in either South Africa or Australia, depending on who wins the bid for the SKA.
SCinet is the fastest network in the world, during the event each year. It is responsible for providing all wireless communications networking for the 12,000 SC attendees, exhibitors, and presenters. This year, SCinet includes a 100 Gbps circuit alongside a 260 Gbps network for conference attendees and exhibitors. SCinet will provide free wireless services and control the entire 2.4GHz and 5.2GHz ISM bands (5.15GHz to 5.35GHz) within the convention center.
Internet2 announced today it will begin deployment of a new, nationwide 100 Gigabit Ethernet network that will be one of the most sophisticated research and education network platforms ever built.
Mobile devices are getting desktop power. Nvidia’s Tegra-2, incorporates a dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 for console gaming on mobile devices. ARM’s own Mali-T604, with the 2.5GHz Cortex-A15 MPCore processor (ArmDevices.net video), is said to leave ARM partner chips like the Powervr SGX544 in the dust. Intel also uses Powervr graphics in its CE3100, CE4100, CE4130, and CE4150 chips.
The cloud has the potential to usurp the established business model of HPC, says SC-10 keynoter Clayton Christensen, a professor at the Harvard Business School.
Soon, medical devices, security, and entertainment could become “virtual industries”, as mobile devices perform the I/O, and leave the heavy lifting to the back-end.
