SC19: Welcome to Denver

By Tiffany Trader

November 17, 2019

A significant swath of the HPC community has come to Denver for SC19, which began today (Sunday) with a rich technical program. As is customary, the ribbon cutting for the Expo Hall opening is Monday at 6:45pm, with the Gala Opening Reception, held from 7-9pm.

As every year, there’s a lot to look forward to — in addition to connecting with your HPC friends and family. SC19 Chair Michela Taufer and the SC19 Committee have put together a banner program of workshops, plenaries, invited talks, panels, tutorials, BoFs, and awards.

Benchmark results will be revealed: the 54th Top500 list, the Green500, the growing HPCG benchmark, the Graph500, IO-500, and more. The new HPL-AI benchmark, led by Jack Dongarra and Piotr Luszczek, will have its official launch this week and will soon be seeking submissions. So far, there is one benchmarked system, Summit (ORNL), which achieved 445 petaflops mixed precision, equivalent to 148 double-precision Linpack petaflops. Dongarra gave an overview of that work — conducted in partnership with ORNL and Nvidia — in June.

For more on the benchmarking updates and analysis, attend the Top500 BoF, Tuesday, 5:15-6:45pm in the Mile High Ballroom. Get there early as it’s a popular and well-attended session.

Diversity in the processor space continues to be a major focal point. Intel, AMD and Nvidia are all lining up to have big news at the show. At the leadership level the U.S. is standing up Intel, AMD, and Arm-based machines, and is exploring further technology development with Fujitsu (per the recent Cray-Fujitsu parnership announcement) as well as NEC. Los Alamos National Laboratory and the United States Naval Research Laboratory are both presenting on early work and benchmarking of the NEC SX-Aurora TSUBASA Vector Engine at NEC’s Aurora Forum, to be held at SC19 on Monday, Nov. 18 (1-3pm) at the Embassy Suites hotel.

We should be hearing more from Nvidia (and relevant ecosystem partners) on the status of Arm-GPU integration, potentially during Nvidia Chief Jensen Huang’s special address Monday afternoon (Nov. 18). At ISC in June, Nvidia committed to accelerated-Arm to a chorus of endorsements from Cray, Marvell, RIKEN and others. Nvidia said the work would progress quickly. Given the momentum behind leadership-scale Arm development — in Japan, the EU and the US — and the market opportunity of accelerating those systems, this move makes sense. Another motivation would be Nvidia seeking an alternate CPU option for its machines, with competitive pressures mounting from AMD and, potentially, Intel on the GPU front. Further, full Arm support opens the door to Arm-GPU machines with NVLink connections into the CPUs.

AMD is picking up Epyc wins left and right. The pinnacle of course being the exascale Oak Ridge Frontier system, slated for late 2021 deployment. The Cray Shasta Frontier will be what AMD calls an A+A system: AMD CPUs and AMD GPUs. As part of the readiness effort, AMD’s Frontier Center of Excellence is providing three training sessions on porting CUDA applications to ROCm with HIP. Short for Heterogeneous-compute Interface for Portability, HIP is a C++ runtime API that allows developers to create portable applications that can run on AMD and other GPUs; notably, it functions as a translational layer for moving codes from CUDA over to Radeon Instinct GPUs. Sessions will be held Nov. 19-21 (Tues., Wed., and Thurs.) in the Banquet Room of Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery in Denver. More info here.

Other show highlights:

Keynote

Exploring the Solar System with the Power of Technology
Tuesday, Nov. 19th, 8:30-10am, Mile High Ballroom
https://sc19.supercomputing.org/presentation/?id=inspkr101&sess=sess345
Steven Squyres, principal scientist for the Mars Exploration Rover Project and James A. Weeks Professor of Physical Sciences at Cornell University, presents on NASA’s mission to Mars and the pioneering drive across its surface by two high-tech robotic rovers named “Spirit” and “Opportunity.”

Invited Talks

There are 12 invited talks held over three days, Nov. 19 through Nov. 21, 2019. Attendees “will hear how translational research and technologies and their applications address some of the most complex challenges of our time. These talks will provide insights with a broad context and from a longer-term perspective,” according to SC19. More information here.

HPC Is Now Plenary

When Technology Kills
Monday, November 18, 5:30-6:30pm, Mile High Ballroom
https://sc19.supercomputing.org/program/hpc-is-now-plenary/
Open to all badge holders. From the abstract: “Technology is increasingly being used to automate and simplify tasks there are many questions arising – how much autonomy machines should be given, what regulations should be put in place to govern software development, what additional training should humans have to manage these new software systems, and ultimately, who is responsible when software fails and causes property damage, injury, or loss of life.”

Analyst briefings

Hyperion Research will host its bi-annual HPC Market Update Breakfast on Tuesday morning, November 19, 2019, 7:00-9:00am at Brown Palace Hotel and Spa.

Intersect360 Research CEO Addison Snell will give his SC19 market overview, including developments and predictions for HPC, Hyperscale, and AI, offering two presentations: Tuesday, November 19, 2:30–3pm at Mellanox Booth Theater, #601, and Wednesday, November 20, 4–4:30pm at AWS Booth Theater, #425.

Awards and Competitions: Don’t miss presentations for the IEEE Seymour Cray Computer Engineering Award, the ACM/IEEE-CS Ken Kennedy Award, the IEEE Sidney Fernbach Award and the Gordon Bell Prize. The SC19 conference awards, as well as selected ACM and IEEE awards, will be presented in a ceremony on November 21, 2019, from 12:45 to 1:30pm in the Mile High Ballroom. And the winner of the always-popular Student Cluster Competition will be revealed. Come wish the teams well at the Student Cluster Competition Kick-off on Monday, from 7:30-8pm in the Exhibit Hall.

HPCwire will announce the winners of the 2019 HPCwire Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards just before the opening gala reception on Monday, Nov. 18. These awards, now in their 16th year, are the only HPC awards that open voting to a worldwide audience of end users.

AI/ML/DL in Full Force

AI and HPC are increasingly intertwined as leadership computing project around the world prioritize the converged use of modeling, simulation and AI. Here’s a rundown of AI-related sessions and activities coming up at SC19  from EnterpriseAI Managing Editor Doug Black.

The SC Committee

A shout out and thank you to ACM, IEEE, the SC Committee, and all the dedicated volunteers who work tirelessly to put on the biggest and longest running HPC event. Read our interview with SC19 Chair and HPCwire 2019 Person to Watch Michela Taufer here.

More SC19 LiveWire coverage here.

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…

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…

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…

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