The Week in Review – 08/05/2010

By Tiffany Trader

August 5, 2010

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

Virginia Tech to Build New Supercomputer

Queensland Centre for Medical Genomics Selects SGI Storage Solution

Australia’s iVEC Announces New POD from HP

GenomeQuest, SGI Announce Whole-Genome Analysis Architecture

HPC Project Launches First Par4all Dedicated to GPU Computing

Tilera Partners with Octera Solutions

Analytical Services Uses Sabalcore’s HPC On-Demand Services

ScaleMP Experiences Record Growth in Q2

Revolution Analytics Brings Big Data Analysis to R Language

Galicia Launches Its First Masters in Supercomputing

Hawaii Open Supercomputing Center to Receive $5M

Program to Train Researchers at the Intersection of Engineering, Biology

IU Receives $9.2M from NSF to Expand Global Networks

NSF Awards Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center $2.8M Toward Shared-Memory System

PRACE Awards 320 Million Compute Hours to Ten European Research Projects

Cray Again

Cray announced last week that it had shipped its first XT6, but we had to wait a full week before learning the name of the customer. On Monday, we found out that the new supercomputer was used in upgrading the UK National Supercomputing service, HECToR. HECToR, which stands for “High End Computing Terascale Resources,” is hosted by the EPCC (Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre) at the Advanced Computing Facility, a supercomputing center based at the University of Edinburgh.

From the release:

The Cray XT6 is contained in 20 cabinets and comprises 464 compute blades. Each blade includes 4 compute nodes, and each compute node comprises two 12-core AMD Opteron 2.1GHz Magny Cours processors. This amounts to a total of 44,544 cores.

Each 12-core socket is coupled with a Cray SeaStar2 routing and communications chip. This will be upgraded in late 2010 to the Cray Gemini interconnect. Each 12-core processor shares 16GB of memory, giving a system total of 59.4 TB.

The theoretical peak performance of the system is over 360 teraflops, earning it a 16th place ranking on the June 2010 TOP500 list.

The installation of the new XT6 system started in late May and took less than a month to complete. The system passed its acceptance and is online.

For more details on HECToR’s hardware and software, go to http://www.hector.ac.uk/service/hardware/.

All the activity surrounding the new XT6 systems could not boost Cray’s Q2 earnings statement, which showed a 54 percent drop in sales. Bleak numbers to be sure, but CEO Peter Ungaro remains hopeful, stating that in a five month period this year, they expect to ship over six-times more compute power than in all of 2009. Note that’s “compute power” not computers, but still not bad.

As I touched on in last week’s Week in Review, it seemed Cray was preparing investors for this week’s financial report by explaining that revenue does not occur based on shipment, but rather based on the customer’s formal acceptance of a system, which is “typically…a multi-week process.” In fact, Cray again refers to the importance of these acceptance dates in the Outlook section of the Q2 financial statement: “Many variables may impact our results, but one significant item is the timing of customer acceptances of our supercomputers.” The release goes on to say that if those customer acceptances go as planned in 2010, the company anticipates revenue in the range of $305 to $325 million for 2010, with the vast majority being recognized in the fourth quarter.

Grid-X (Finally) Comes Out of Hiding

Grid-X comes out stealth mode. This week SeaFire Micros announced that it is the creator of Grid-X, a cloud computing architecture that accelerates processor and TCP/IP speeds for 100 Gigabit Ethernet networks. The technology was demonstrated in July to key customers and technology partners in the aerospace, defense, and supercomputing industries.

TCP/IP offload engines are typically used to accelerate the speed at which grids, clusters or supercomputers process data, but Grid-X can be used for other applications too, such as those running on mobile devices.

From the release:

The patent-pending Grid-X architecture is one of SeaFire’s green initiatives. Grid-X has shown to require 50-75 percent less computing resources and generates less heat than present backplane or battery powered solutions. For mobile devices, this capability allows extended use of data-intensive applications with minimal drain on the battery.

We first heard about the Grid-X technology several years ago, and even wrote a feature on it. Yes, it’s from three years ago; and they’ve been mum ever since until this week’s debut.

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