The Week in Review

By Tiffany Trader

March 25, 2010

Here is a collection of highlights from this week’s news stream as reported by HPCwire.

New World Record in Energy-Efficient Data Processing

HP, Intel Detail Technology Advances for Workstation Customers

Eurotech, AuroraScience to Install Aurora Au-5600 System

DOE, USDA, and NSF Launch Joint Climate Change Prediction Research Program

IDC Says HPC Server Market Declined 11.6% in 2009

Dell Announces New Medical Archiving and HPC Solutions

Linux Selected as Operating System for Blue Waters

AMD Hardware Added to IACAT Accelerator Cluster

TotalView 8.8 with ReplayEngine 1.7 and MemoryScape 3.1 Released

Cray Launches CX1000 Supercomputer

Chelsio Announces 4th Generation Terminator Chip

Sandia to Break Ground for New Computational Laboratories Building

Avago Technologies Collaborates with IBM on Optical Interconnect

XtreemOS 2.1 Release Announced

Astrophysicists, Cosmologists to Tap Power of Blue Waters

Nine PRACE Prototypes are Available for Testing

Computer Science Enrollment Trending Upward

For the second year in a row, both the number of undergraduate students enrolled in computer science departments and the number of undergraduates majoring in computer science increased significantly after steep decline for nearly a decade, according to the Computing Research Association’s Taulbee Survey.

From the Computing Research Policy blog:

The number of new students majoring in computer science increased 8.5 percent over last year. The total number of majors increased 5.5 percent, yielding a two-year increase of 14 percent. Computer science graduation rates should increase in two to three years as these new students graduate.

This growth comes at the same time as goverment projections anticipate that careers in computing are among those that will grow fastest over the next decade. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, for example, predicts that computer science graduates can anticipate excellent job prospects with higher than average salaries.

The chair of the CRA, Dr. Eric Grimson, shared his thoughts on the increase:

This upward surge proves that computer science is cool again. Computers, smartphones and online social networks are a daily part of young people’s lives. It should come as no surprise that today’s students want to learn more about computing.

Surely, driving interest in technology is a complex, multi-faceted issue, but it seems possible that the new administration’s pro-science policies are already reaping dividends. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), aka “the stimulus package,” provided approximately $21 billion for scientific research and development, scientific equipment, and science-related construction.

The “Computing Degree and Enrollment Trends” portion of CRA’s annual survey of its member departments, the CRA Taulbee Survey, can be downloaded here (PDF).

IBM Partners with Forschungszentrum Juelich to Develop Exascale System

Once the petascale barrier was surpassed, it was inevitable that the future-minded would look to hit the next big mark. In the scheme of big number counting, we have the terms teraflop, petaflop and exaflop, each representing a 1,000-fold increase of the one before. So the trajectory is exponential, not linear, which just adds to the intensity of the challenge. On average, that 1,000 fold increase in processing power takes about 10 years to achieve, which would put the creation of an exascale system in the 2018-2019 timeframe.

In that spirit, IBM has announced its latest Exascale Innovation Center, this one a partership with the German Supercomputing Center, Forschungszentrum Juelich. The two parties signed a contract to develop hardware and software for an exascale supercomputer that will be under development through the end of the decade.

Professor Bachem, the chairman of the board of directors of Forschungszentrum Juelich, characterized the exascale project at ”the premier challenge for supercomputing worldwide.”

Forschungszentrum Juelich is already home to the petaflop-level JUGENE supercomputer, a BlueGene/P system, and the fastest supercomputer in Europe based on the latest TOP500 listing. So it makes sense that Forschungszentrum Juelich is one of a few clients that IBM has selected to assist with the development testing of the next iteration the IBM Blue Gene architecture.

A prototype of the new exascale supercomputer is expected to be ready in 2015, with a full exaflop-level machine planned for 2019.

IBM is not alone in its exaflop aspirations; other companies have announced their own exascale projects in recent months. For example, in December, Cray launched its Exascale Research Initiative in Frankfurt, Germany, and in November, Intel announced plans to create its European Exascale Computing Research Center in Paris, France.

Subscribe to HPCwire's Weekly Update!

Be the most informed person in the room! Stay ahead of the tech trends with industry updates delivered to you every week!

MLPerf Inference 4.0 Results Showcase GenAI; Nvidia Still Dominates

March 28, 2024

There were no startling surprises in the latest MLPerf Inference benchmark (4.0) results released yesterday. Two new workloads — Llama 2 and Stable Diffusion XL — were added to the benchmark suite as MLPerf continues Read more…

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing power it brings to artificial intelligence.  Nvidia's DGX Read more…

Call for Participation in Workshop on Potential NSF CISE Quantum Initiative

March 26, 2024

Editor’s Note: Next month there will be a workshop to discuss what a quantum initiative led by NSF’s Computer, Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate could entail. The details are posted below in a Ca Read more…

Waseda U. Researchers Reports New Quantum Algorithm for Speeding Optimization

March 25, 2024

Optimization problems cover a wide range of applications and are often cited as good candidates for quantum computing. However, the execution time for constrained combinatorial optimization applications on quantum device Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at the network layer threatens to make bigger and brawnier pro Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HBM3E memory as well as the the ability to train 1 trillion pa Read more…

MLPerf Inference 4.0 Results Showcase GenAI; Nvidia Still Dominates

March 28, 2024

There were no startling surprises in the latest MLPerf Inference benchmark (4.0) results released yesterday. Two new workloads — Llama 2 and Stable Diffusion Read more…

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing po Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HB Read more…

Nvidia Looks to Accelerate GenAI Adoption with NIM

March 19, 2024

Today at the GPU Technology Conference, Nvidia launched a new offering aimed at helping customers quickly deploy their generative AI applications in a secure, s Read more…

The Generative AI Future Is Now, Nvidia’s Huang Says

March 19, 2024

We are in the early days of a transformative shift in how business gets done thanks to the advent of generative AI, according to Nvidia CEO and cofounder Jensen Read more…

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, codenamed Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. Wh Read more…

Alibaba Shuts Down its Quantum Computing Effort

November 30, 2023

In case you missed it, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has shut down its quantum computing research effort. It’s not entirely clear what drove the change. Read more…

Nvidia H100: Are 550,000 GPUs Enough for This Year?

August 17, 2023

The GPU Squeeze continues to place a premium on Nvidia H100 GPUs. In a recent Financial Times article, Nvidia reports that it expects to ship 550,000 of its lat Read more…

Shutterstock 1285747942

AMD’s Horsepower-packed MI300X GPU Beats Nvidia’s Upcoming H200

December 7, 2023

AMD and Nvidia are locked in an AI performance battle – much like the gaming GPU performance clash the companies have waged for decades. AMD has claimed it Read more…

DoD Takes a Long View of Quantum Computing

December 19, 2023

Given the large sums tied to expensive weapon systems – think $100-million-plus per F-35 fighter – it’s easy to forget the U.S. Department of Defense is a Read more…

Synopsys Eats Ansys: Does HPC Get Indigestion?

February 8, 2024

Recently, it was announced that Synopsys is buying HPC tool developer Ansys. Started in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1970 as Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc. (SASI) by John Swanson (and eventually renamed), Ansys serves the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)/multiphysics engineering simulation market. Read more…

Choosing the Right GPU for LLM Inference and Training

December 11, 2023

Accelerating the training and inference processes of deep learning models is crucial for unleashing their true potential and NVIDIA GPUs have emerged as a game- Read more…

Intel’s Server and PC Chip Development Will Blur After 2025

January 15, 2024

Intel's dealing with much more than chip rivals breathing down its neck; it is simultaneously integrating a bevy of new technologies such as chiplets, artificia Read more…

Baidu Exits Quantum, Closely Following Alibaba’s Earlier Move

January 5, 2024

Reuters reported this week that Baidu, China’s giant e-commerce and services provider, is exiting the quantum computing development arena. Reuters reported � Read more…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

Comparing NVIDIA A100 and NVIDIA L40S: Which GPU is Ideal for AI and Graphics-Intensive Workloads?

October 30, 2023

With long lead times for the NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs, many organizations are looking at the new NVIDIA L40S GPU, which it’s a new GPU optimized for AI and g Read more…

Shutterstock 1179408610

Google Addresses the Mysteries of Its Hypercomputer 

December 28, 2023

When Google launched its Hypercomputer earlier this month (December 2023), the first reaction was, "Say what?" It turns out that the Hypercomputer is Google's t Read more…

AMD MI3000A

How AMD May Get Across the CUDA Moat

October 5, 2023

When discussing GenAI, the term "GPU" almost always enters the conversation and the topic often moves toward performance and access. Interestingly, the word "GPU" is assumed to mean "Nvidia" products. (As an aside, the popular Nvidia hardware used in GenAI are not technically... Read more…

Shutterstock 1606064203

Meta’s Zuckerberg Puts Its AI Future in the Hands of 600,000 GPUs

January 25, 2024

In under two minutes, Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, laid out the company's AI plans, which included a plan to build an artificial intelligence system with the eq Read more…

Google Introduces ‘Hypercomputer’ to Its AI Infrastructure

December 11, 2023

Google ran out of monikers to describe its new AI system released on December 7. Supercomputer perhaps wasn't an apt description, so it settled on Hypercomputer Read more…

China Is All In on a RISC-V Future

January 8, 2024

The state of RISC-V in China was discussed in a recent report released by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The report, entitled "E Read more…

Intel Won’t Have a Xeon Max Chip with New Emerald Rapids CPU

December 14, 2023

As expected, Intel officially announced its 5th generation Xeon server chips codenamed Emerald Rapids at an event in New York City, where the focus was really o Read more…

IBM Quantum Summit: Two New QPUs, Upgraded Qiskit, 10-year Roadmap and More

December 4, 2023

IBM kicks off its annual Quantum Summit today and will announce a broad range of advances including its much-anticipated 1121-qubit Condor QPU, a smaller 133-qu Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire