Why is pursuing exascale computing so important? In a new video – Hewlett Packard Enterprise: Eighteen Zeros – four HPE executives, a prominent national lab HPC researcher, and HPCwire managing editor Tiffany Trader explain in layman terms why and how exascale computing will drive the next big advances in scientific discovery and applied technologies such as precision medicine.
HPE is one of six leading technology vendors selected by the Department of Energy to spearhead the U.S. Exascale Computing Project. The short movie does a nice job explaining exascale’s potential with a few concrete examples – think the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project and cancer fighting research. It also touches on some of the obstacles on the path to exascale such as power; an exascale machine built by aggregating today’s biggest systems would require roughly 650 megawatts of power.
While the ideas presented are deeply ingrained in the HPC and science communities, they are often less familiar to general audiences. Speakers include: HPE execs Nicolas Dube (chief strategist), Paolo Faraboschi (fellow), Bill Mannel (VP and general manager), Mike Vildibill (VP of the advanced technology group), along with Donna Crawford, associate director computation emeritus, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Trader.
HPE’s vision for memory-driven computing is also summarized with SKA as a well-chosen exemplar of the challenge. SKA is expected to generate and exabyte of data per day. The video is a little over six minutes.