2017 Gordon Bell Prize Finalists Named

By John Russell

October 23, 2017

The three finalists for this year’s Gordon Bell Prize in High Performance Computing have been announced. They include two papers on projects run on China’s Sunway TaihuLight system and a third paper on 3D image reconstruction from a group of Purdue University researchers. The award carries a $10,000 award and will be made on Thursday, November 16, during SC2017 being held in Denver.

“The Gordon Bell Prize recognizes the extraordinary progress made each year in the innovative application of parallel computing to challenges in science, engineering, and large-scale data analytics. Prizes may be awarded for peak performance or special achievements in scalability and time-to-solution on important science and engineering problems. Financial support of the $10,000 prize is made possible by Gordon Bell, a pioneer in high-performance and parallel computing and past winner of the IEEE Seymour Cray Award for his exceptional contributions in the design of several computer systems that changed the world of high performance computing.”

Here’s a brief description of the finalist papers:

Redesigning CAM-SE for Petascale Climate Modeling Performance on Sunway TaihuLight

Description: We refactor and optimize the entire Community Atmosphere Model (CAM) to the full system of the Sunway TaihuLight, and provide a petascale climate modeling performance. We scale the CAM to 1.5 million cores with a simulation speed of 2.81 simulated years per day using OpenACC directives at the first stage. We then apply a more aggressive and challenging finer-grained redesign of the HOMME dynamical core, to achieve finer memory control, more efficient vectorization and overlap between computation and communication. Besides, a register communication based parallelism scheme is proposed to minimize the data dependencies in the modules. By doing so, our optimized kernels running on a 260-core Sunway processor outperform the established HOMME kernels on a platform with up to 184 Intel Xeon E5-2680V3 CPU cores. And our implementation has achieved a sustainable double-precision performance around 2.5 Pflops for a 0.75 km global simulation when using 8,519,680 cores

Authors: Haohuan Fu, Junfeng Liao, Nan Ding, Xiaohui Duan, Lin Gan, Yishuang Liang, Xinliang Wang, Jinzhe Yang, Yan Zheng, Weiguo Liu, Lanning Wang, Guangwen Yang
https://sc17.supercomputing.org/presentation/?id=gb101&sess=sess147

 

15-Pflops Nonlinear Earthquake Simulation on Sunway TaihuLight: Enabling Depiction of Realistic 10 Hz Scenarios

Description: This paper reports our work on building a highly efficient earthquake simulation platform on Sunway TaihuLight, with 125 Pflops computing power and over 10 million cores. With the platform originated from AWP-ODC and CG-FDM, a large part of our efforts focuses on redesigning the velocity, stress, and plasticity processing kernels for the completely different microarchitecture and significantly increased parallelism of Sunway TaihuLight. By a combined approach including (1) an optimized parallelization scheme, (2) the most suitable blocking configuration, (3) fusion of co-located arrays, (4) register communication with CPE ID remapping for halo exchanges, and (5) customized ROM-less evaluation of elementary function, we manage to achieve an efficient utilization of over 12.2% of the theoretical peak of the entire system. Our program provides a sustained performance of over 15 Pflops and enables the simulation of the Tangshan earthquake with a spatial resolution of 25 m and a frequency of 10 Hz.

Authors: Haohuan Fu, Conghui He, Bingwei Chen, Zekun Yin, Zhenguo Zhang, Wenqiang Zhang, Tingjian Zhang, Wei Xue, Weiguo Liu, Wanwang Yin, Guangwen Yang, Xiaofei Chen
https://sc17.supercomputing.org/presentation/?id=gb102&sess=sess147

 

Massively Parallel 3D Image Reconstruction

Description: Computed Tomography (CT) image reconstruction is an important technique used in a wide range of applications. Among reconstruction methods, Model-Based Iterative Reconstruction (MBIR) generally produces higher quality images. However, the irregular data access pattern, the difficulty of effective parallelization and slow algorithmic convergence have made MBIR impractical for many applications. This paper presents a new algorithm for MBIR, Non-Uniform Parallel Super-Voxel (NU-PSV), that regularizes the data access pattern, enables massive parallelism and ensures fast convergence. We compare the NU-PSV algorithm with two state-of-the-art implementations on a 69632-core distributed system. Results indicate that the NU-PSV algorithm has an average speedup of 1665 compared to the fastest state-of-the-art implementations.

Authors: Xiao Wang, Amit Sabne, Putt Sakdhnagool, Sherman J. Kisner, Charles A. Bouman, Samuel P. Midkiff
https://sc17.supercomputing.org/presentation/?id=gb103&sess=sess147

Gordon Bell prize finalists are selected by a committee comprising past Gordon Bell winners, as well as leaders in the field of high performance computing. Solving an important scientific or engineering problem in HPC is important, but scientific outcomes alone are not sufficient for this prize—finalists are selected from submissions that describe the innovations of the project, detail the performance levels achieved on one or more real-world applications, and outline what the implications of the approach are for the broader HPC community.

Subhash Saini, chair of the Gordon Bell Award for the last two years, will chair the three sessions of ACM Gordon Bell Finalists presentations at SC17.

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!

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

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from its predecessors, including the red-hot H100 and A100 GPUs. 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. While Nvidia may not spring to mind when thinking of the quant Read more…

2024 Winter Classic: Meet the HPE Mentors

March 18, 2024

The latest installment of the 2024 Winter Classic Studio Update Show features our interview with the HPE mentor team who introduced our student teams to the joys (and potential sorrows) of the HPL (LINPACK) and accompany Read more…

Houston We Have a Solution: Addressing the HPC and Tech Talent Gap

March 15, 2024

Generations of Houstonian teachers, counselors, and parents have either worked in the aerospace industry or know people who do - the prospect of entering the field was normalized for boys in 1969 when the Apollo 11 missi Read more…

Apple Buys DarwinAI Deepening its AI Push According to Report

March 14, 2024

Apple has purchased Canadian AI startup DarwinAI according to a Bloomberg report today. Apparently the deal was done early this year but still hasn’t been publicly announced according to the report. Apple is preparing Read more…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimization algorithms to iteratively refine their parameters until Read more…

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

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, code-named 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…

Houston We Have a Solution: Addressing the HPC and Tech Talent Gap

March 15, 2024

Generations of Houstonian teachers, counselors, and parents have either worked in the aerospace industry or know people who do - the prospect of entering the fi Read more…

Survey of Rapid Training Methods for Neural Networks

March 14, 2024

Artificial neural networks are computing systems with interconnected layers that process and learn from data. During training, neural networks utilize optimizat Read more…

PASQAL Issues Roadmap to 10,000 Qubits in 2026 and Fault Tolerance in 2028

March 13, 2024

Paris-based PASQAL, a developer of neutral atom-based quantum computers, yesterday issued a roadmap for delivering systems with 10,000 physical qubits in 2026 a Read more…

India Is an AI Powerhouse Waiting to Happen, but Challenges Await

March 12, 2024

The Indian government is pushing full speed ahead to make the country an attractive technology base, especially in the hot fields of AI and semiconductors, but Read more…

Charles Tahan Exits National Quantum Coordination Office

March 12, 2024

(March 1, 2024) My first official day at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) was June 15, 2020, during the depths of the COVID-19 loc Read more…

AI Bias In the Spotlight On International Women’s Day

March 11, 2024

What impact does AI bias have on women and girls? What can people do to increase female participation in the AI field? These are some of the questions the tech 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…

Analyst Panel Says Take the Quantum Computing Plunge Now…

November 27, 2023

Should you start exploring quantum computing? Yes, said a panel of analysts convened at Tabor Communications HPC and AI on Wall Street conference earlier this y 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…

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

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…

Training of 1-Trillion Parameter Scientific AI Begins

November 13, 2023

A US national lab has started training a massive AI brain that could ultimately become the must-have computing resource for scientific researchers. Argonne N 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…

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…

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…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire