Inside HPC & AI News | High-Performance Computing & Artificial Intelligence

In this TACC podcast, Cosmos code developer Chris Fragile joins host Jorge Salazar for a discussion on how researchers are using supercomputers to simulate the inner workings of Black holes. "For this simulation, the manycore architecture of KNL presents new challenges for researchers trying to get the best compute performance. This is a computer chip that has lots of cores compared to some of the other chips one might have interacted with on other systems," McDougall explained. "More attention needs to be paid to the design of software to run effectively on those types of chips."The post Podcast: Optimizing Cosmos Code on Intel Xeon Phi appeared first on insideHPC.

Today Bright Computing, a global leader in cluster and cloud infrastructure automation software, is proud to announce that the University of North Texas (UNT) has integrated Bright Cluster Manager into its HPC environment for research support. The University uses this 350-node cluster to optimize efficiency for researchers working on groundbreaking discoveries in a variety of domains material science, engineering, chemistry, and physics. Bright Cluster Manager helps UNT’s University Information Technology department successfully provision, monitor and manage heterogeneous clusters.The post University of North Texas turns to Bright Computing for Efficient Cluster Management appeared first on insideHPC.

Composable infrastructure allows any number of CPU nodes to dynamically map the optimum number of GPU and NVMe storage resources to each node required to complete a specific task. In this sponsored post, Katie Rivera of One Stop Systems, explores the power of GPUs and the potential benefits of composable infrastructure for HPC.The post Composable Infrastructure: Composing Greater HPC Breakthroughs appeared first on insideHPC.

Today Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced the HPE Superdome Flex, "the world’s most scalable and modular in-memory computing platform." The platform enables enterprises of any size to process and analyze massive amounts of data and turn it into real-time business insights. "HPE’s latest mission critical in-memory computing platform combines the reliability of HPE Integrity Superdome X with the scalable technology for high performance data analytics that HPE gained with its acquisition of SGI."The post HPE brings SGI in-memory Technology to Superdome Flex System appeared first on insideHPC.

Since its early days, the OLCF has consistently delivered supercomputers of unprecedented capability to the scientific community on behalf of DOE—contributing to a rapid evolution in scientific computing that has produced a millionfold increase in computing power. This rise has included the launch of the first teraflop system for open science, the science community’s first petaflop system, and two top-ranked machines on the TOP500 list. The next chapter in the OLCF’s legacy is set to begin with the deployment of Summit, a pre-exascale system capable of more than five times the performance of Titan."The post Video: 25 Years of Supercomputing at Oak Ridge appeared first on insideHPC.

Today Mellanox announced the Innova-2 product family of FPGA-based smart network adapters. Innova-2 is the industry leading programmable adapter designed for a wide range of applications, including security, cloud, Big Data, deep learning, NFV and high performance computing. "Xilinx is pleased that our All Programmable UltraScale FPGAs are accelerating Mellanox’s Innova network adaptors,” said Manish Muthal, vice president of Data Center Business at Xilinx. “Our combined technology enables the rapid deployment of customized acceleration for emerging data center and high performance computing workloads.”The post Mellanox Announces Innova-2 FPGA-Based Programmable Adapters appeared first on insideHPC.

Today Oklahoma State University announced that Advanced Clustering Technologies has been contracted to build and install its newest supercomputer to support a broad range of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. "The new supercomputer, which will be named after the university’s mascot, Pistol Pete, will serve as a campus-wide shared resource, available at no charge to all OSU faculty, staff, postdocs, graduate students and undergraduates, as well as to researchers and educators across Oklahoma."The post Advanced Clustering Technologies to build “Pistol Pete” Supercomputer at Oklahoma State appeared first on insideHPC.

This year at SC17, Intel offers many opportunities to learn about the newest technologies, emerging fields like Artificial Intelligence, and the ways organizations are applying those capabilities for real-world applications."The post Intel at SC17: Showcasing HPC technologies, luminary speakers, and a virtual motorsports experience appeared first on insideHPC.

Today Shared Services Canada (SSC) dedicated a pair of Cray supercomputers in Quebec. The new HPC systems will be used by the Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) to improve the accuracy and timeliness of weather warnings and forecasts. "Accurate and timely weather forecasting helps us protect our homes and businesses in the face of extreme storms and tornadoes, which are getting worse due to climate change. By supporting quality weather forecasts and warnings, the new High Performance Computers will help protect Canadians for years to come."The post Cray Deploys Pair of Supercomputers in Canada for Weather Forecasting appeared first on insideHPC.

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC teams discusses performance optimization with Carolyn Pasti and Don Avart from Red Line Performance Solutions. The company is partnering with Radio Free HPC on Project Cyclops, an effort to build the world’s fastest single node on the HPCG benchmark. Listen in as Don and Carolyn share their methodology for workload performance optimization and what it takes to make clusters really perform up their potential in the real world.The post Radio Free HPC Talks Optimization with RedLine Performance Solutions appeared first on insideHPC.

For the first time, a team high school of high schoolers will compete in the Student Cluster Competition next week at SC17 in Denver. The team hails from Harrison High School in West Lafayette, Indiana. "In this real-time, non-stop, 48-hour challenge, teams of undergraduate and/or high school students assemble a small cluster on the exhibit floor and race to complete a real-world workload across a series of applications and impress HPC industry judges."The post High School Team to Compete in SC17 Student Cluster Competition appeared first on insideHPC.

Wayne State University is seeking a Senior Systems Software Engineer in our Job of the Week. "This position will utilize a specialized knowledge of Linux/CentOS to assist with installing, configuring, and troubleshooting software, compilers, libraries, build tools, and updating and maintaining respective modules for research applications for WSU affiliated researchers and students. Candidates will also help deploy and manage OpenHPC systems software across the Grid and related systems on campus."The post Job of the Week: Senior Systems Software Engineer at Wayne State University appeared first on insideHPC.

The ARM HPC User Group has posted their Agenda for their SC17 Meetup. The event takes place Monday, Nov. 13 from 1:30 - 6:30pm at the Grand Hyatt in Denver. "Join us for Arm’s third annual HPC User Group session held during SC17 in Denver, CO. Sessions will feature presentations by Arm ecosystem leads, end-users, and ecosystem partners involved in the deployment of Arm servers for HPC."The post Agenda Posted for ARM HPC User Group at SC17 appeared first on insideHPC.

Today Univa announced the integration of UberCloud parallel application containers with Univa Grid Engine. In May of last year, Univa, a leading innovator of workload management products, announced the availability of Docker software container support with its Grid Engine 8.4.0 product, enabling enterprises to automatically dispatch and run jobs in Docker containers, from a user specified Docker image, on a Univa Grid Engine cluster.The post Univa Grid Engine adds UberCloud Parallel MPI to Docker Containers appeared first on insideHPC.

At SC17 in Denver, volunteers have already started the installation of SCinet, the high-capacity network that supports the revolutionary applications and experiments that are a hallmark of the SC conference. SCinet takes one year to plan, and those efforts culminate in a month-long period of staging, setup and operation of the network during the conference.The post Volunteers Ready High Speed SCinet for SC17 appeared first on insideHPC.

Today Asetek announced E4 Computer Engineering as a new datacenter OEM partner. E4 Computer Engineering has utilized Asetek RackCDU D2C (Direct-to-Chip) liquid cooling for the D.A.V.I.D.E. SUPERCOMPUTER in Italy. Commissioned by PRACE (The Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe) and installed at CINECA (PRACE Italian hosting member), the innovative OpenPOWER-based D.A.V.I.D.E. supercomputer is built on top of the IBM POWER8 architecture.The post Asetek Partners with E4 Computer Engineering, Announces Installation at CINECA appeared first on insideHPC.

D-Wave Systems will hold a Quantum Computing Seminar & Livestream from 2:00pm - 5:00pm on Monday, Nov. 13 in Denver. "We will discuss quantum computing, the D-Wave 2000Q system and software, the growing software ecosystem, an overview of some user projects, and how quantum computing can be applied to problems in optimization, machine learning, cyber security, and sampling.”The post Agenda Posted for D-Wave Quantum Seminar & Livestream at SC17 appeared first on insideHPC.

In this video from the 2017 Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing, Pavan Balaji from Argonne presents an overview of system interconnects for HPC. "The Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing (ATPESC) provides intensive, two weeks of training on the key skills, approaches, and tools to design, implement, and execute computational science and engineering applications on current high-end computing systems and the leadership-class computing systems of the future."The post Video: System Interconnects for HPC appeared first on insideHPC.

In this RCE Podcast, Brock Palen and Jeff Squyres discuss Jupyter with Dr. Brian Granger from Cal Poly State University. "Jupyter is a non-profit, open-source project, born out of the IPython Project in 2014 as it evolved to support interactive data science and scientific computing across all programming languages."The post RCE-Podcast Looks at Project Jupyter for Interactive Data Science appeared first on insideHPC.

Ellexus has launched Container Checker on Amazon Web Services’ Marketplace, a pioneering cloud-based tool that provides visibility into the inner workings of Docker containers. "Container Checker will help people using cloud platforms to quickly detect problems within their containers before they are let loose on the cloud to potentially waste time and compute spend. Estimates suggest that up to 45% of cloud spend is wasted due in part to unknown application activity and unsuitable storage decisions, which is what we want to help businesses tackle.”The post Ellexus Container Checker looks to Revolutionize Cloud Container Use appeared first on insideHPC.

The Pagoda Project—a three-year Exascale Computing Project software development program based at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory—has successfully reached a major milestone: making its open source software libraries publicly available as of September 30, 2017. "Our job is to ensure that the exascale applications reach key performance parameters defined by the DOE,” said Baden.The post Pagoda Project Rolls Out First Software Libraries for Exascale appeared first on insideHPC.

There are two main categories or uses where rendering on the Intel Xeon Phi processors should be investigated. The first is what could be called "Professional rendering" and the second, "Scientific visualization." "Software based visualization, whether for photo-realistic rendering or scientific visualization can be accelerated with a software only approach. This allows for new algorithms to be implemented faster than waiting for the next generation of hardware systems to appear. As the number of computing elements increases, performance can increase as well."The post Visualizing with Software Rendering with Intel Xeon Phi appeared first on insideHPC.

The world of High Frequency Trading is all about reducing latency to make money. At the recent STAC Summit in Chicago, a Penguin Computing device called The Ultimate Trading Machine achieved a record-low 98 nanosecond tick-to-trade latency, some 18% faster than the previous world record. "Facing tremendous pressures to optimize the transaction lifecycle, the financial services industry helps drive innovations in many core technologies. At Penguin Computing, we empower our customers with with open technology solutions that achieve performance requirements while keeping costs low and avoiding vendor lock-in. We are proud to join with our partners to deliver this Ultimate Trading Machine."The post “The Ultimate Trading Machine” from Penguin Computing sets Record for Low Latency appeared first on insideHPC.

This week at GTC DC, Supermicro is showcasing GPU server platforms that support NVIDIA Tesla V100 PCI-E and V100 SXM2 GPUs. “Our high performance computing solutions enable deep learning, engineering and scientific fields to scale out their compute clusters to accelerate their most demanding workloads and achieve fastest time-to-results with maximum performance per watt, per square foot and per dollar."The post Supermicro Showcases Volta GPU Systems at GTC Washington DC appeared first on insideHPC.

Today NVIDIA announced a broad expansion of its Deep Learning Institute (DLI), which is training tens of thousands of students, developers and data scientists with critical skills needed to apply artificial intelligence. "The world faces an acute shortage of data scientists and developers who are proficient in deep learning, and we’re focused on addressing that need,” said Greg Estes, vice president of Developer Programs at NVIDIA. “As part of the company’s effort to democratize AI, the Deep Learning Institute is enabling more developers, researchers and data scientists to apply this powerful technology to solve difficult problems.”The post NVIDIA Expands Deep Learning Institute appeared first on insideHPC.

"Linux Containers gain more and more momentum in all IT ecosystems. This talk provides an overview about what happened in the container landscape (in particular Docker) during the course of the last year and how it impacts datacenter operations, HPC and High-Performance Big Data. Furthermore Christian will give an update/extend on the ‘things to explore’ list he presented in the last Lugano workshop, applying what he learned and came across during the year 2016."The post Video: The State of Linux Containers appeared first on insideHPC.

The DDN User Group has posted their agenda for their meetup at SC17. The meeting takes place 2:30pm - 6:30pm on Nov. 13 at the Embassy Suites in Denver. "The DDN User Group brings the HPC community together with DDN executive and technical leadership to share how leading global organizations are leveraging innovative new approaches, best practices, and technologies to raise the bar on HPC discoveries. This year, we are hosting the user group at the Embassy Suites, which is a three minute-walk across the street from the Colorado Convention Center."The post Agenda Posted for DDN User Group at SC17 appeared first on insideHPC.

Today RAID Incorporated announced “its most advanced storage series yet.” The Xanadu 500 series is designed to simplify and deliver high performance computing storage at an optimized price/performance ratio. With companies and organizations increasing their IT infrastructure to accommodate Big Data and Analytics at record magnitudes, it is imperative that their storage systems are appropriately […]The post RAID Inc. Unveils Xanadu 500 Storage Appliances appeared first on insideHPC.

DK Panda from Ohio State University presented this talk at the HPC Advisory Council Spain Conference. "This talk will focus on challenges in designing HPC, Big Data, and Deep Learning middleware for Exascale systems with millions of processors and accelerators. For the HPC domain, we will discuss about the challenges in designing runtime environments for MPI+X (PGAS OpenSHMEM/UPC/CAF/UPC++, OpenMP, and CUDA) programming models. Features and sample performance numbers from MVAPICH2 libraries will be presented."The post Designing HPC, Big Data, & Deep Learning Middleware for Exascale appeared first on insideHPC.

Today Asetek announced NEC Corporation as a new data center OEM partner. NEC Corporation, through its subsidiary NEC Fielding, Ltd., will deploy Asetek RackCDU Direct-to-Chip liquid cooling at a new HPC installation in Japan. Asetek has already begun to make shipments in support of this installation. "Liquid cooling technology is becoming a key supercomputer component. Asetek’s direct-to-chip technology enables more effective cooling and increased computational performance in high density HPC clusters, adding value for our end-users,” said Noritaka HOSHI, (Senior Manager), NEC Corporation.The post Asetek Announces NEC as New Datacenter OEM Partner appeared first on insideHPC.

Fujitsu has posted news that their new AI supercomputer at RIKEN in Japan is already being used for AI research. Called RAIDEN (Riken AIp Deep learning ENvironment), the GPU-accelerated Fujitsu system sports 4 Petaflops of processing power. "The RAIDEN supercomputer is built around Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX 2530 M2 servers with and 24 NVIDIA DGX-1 systems. With 8 NVIDIA Tesla GPUs per chassis, the DGX-1 includes access to today’s most popular deep learning frameworks."The post NVIDIA GPUs Power Fujitsu AI Supercomputer at RIKEN in Japan appeared first on insideHPC.

Magnified in 2017 by machine learning and AI, there is a heightened concern in the HPC community over wattage trends in CPUs, GPUs and emerging neural chips required to meet accelerating computational demands in HPC clusters. In this sponsored post from Asetek, the company examines how high wattage trends in HPC, deep learning and AI might be reaching an inflection point.The post The Inflection Point of Wattage in HPC, Deep Learning and AI appeared first on insideHPC.

Hyperion Research will host their annual Breakfast Briefing at SC17 in Denver. The event takes place at the Denver Marriott City Center at 7:30am - 9:30am on Tuesday, Nov. 14. "We will be presenting an update on HPC market results, key technology issues & trends, results of new research studies in AI & Big data, new ROI results, and the mapping of HPC centers across the US."The post Hyperion Research Breakfast Briefing Returns to Denver at SC17 appeared first on insideHPC.

In this video from the SC17 HPC Connects series, Pete Beckman and Charlie Catlett from Argonne describe how the Smart Cities initiative to improve the quality of life for residents using HPC, urban informatics, and other technologies to improve the efficiency of services. "Smart Cities will be the topic of the SC17 plenary session, which kicks off the conference at 5:30pm on Monday, Nov. 13 in the Colorado Convention Center."The post HPC Connects with Smart Cities at SC17 appeared first on insideHPC.

Today the Pawsey Supercomputing Center in Australia announced plans to expand its Zeus cluster from a pre/post processing cluster to a mid-range compute cluster in December 2017. This expansion will provide more than 20 million additional core hours to researchers. "This is another piece of the puzzle, ensuring that Pawsey provides the most suitable resources for Australian researchers,” said David Schibeci, Head of Supercomputing at Pawsey. “We’ve seen an unquenchable thirst for compute power in this country and we are happy to continue to support science outcomes that come from that thirst.”The post Pawsey Centre in Australia Upgrades Zeus Cluster appeared first on insideHPC.

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team previews the ancillary events leading up to SC17, which takes place Nov. 12-17 in Denver. "SC17 is the world's largest gathering of supercomputing professionals. There's a lot not to miss before the exhibit floor opens in Denver, and we have the full countdown."The post Radio Free HPC Previews SC17 in Denver appeared first on insideHPC.

Today the European Commission plans to spend €30 billion of the EU research and innovation funding program Horizon 2020 during 2018-2020, including €2.7 billion to kick-start a European Innovation Council. "The program marks a step change in promoting Open Science by shifting from publishing research results in scientific publications towards sharing knowledge sooner in the research process."The post European Commission to invest €30 billion in Research, Science, and Innovation appeared first on insideHPC.

In this video, Dan Olds from OrionX presents insights from their Q2-Q3 2017 Survey on Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning/Deep Learning - one of the industry's most comprehensive AI/ML/DL surveys to date with more than 144 data points. "Dan Olds talks the audience through the demographics and questions, respondents’ understanding of AI/ML/DL, current projects, who is driving AI in organizations, project attributes and more."The post Industry Analysis: AI and Deep Learning – the Voice of the Market appeared first on insideHPC.

Gilad Shainer gave this talk at the HPC Advisory Council Spain Conference. "The latest revolution in HPC is the move to a co-design architecture, a collaborative effort among industry, academia, and manufacturers to reach Exascale performance. By taking a holistic system-level approach to fundamental performance improvements Co-design architectures exploit system efficiency and optimizes performance by creating synergies between the hardware and the software."The post Video: The Era of Data-Centric Data Centers appeared first on insideHPC.

Purdue University seeks a HPC Systems Administrator to design, deploy, administer, and update large-scale research systems, related infrastructure services, grid software stacks, and operating systems. Additionally, as HPC Systems Administrator, you will be responsible for components of Purdue's computational research environment, and work closely with researchers, systems administrators, engineers and developers throughout the University and partner institutions. You will also administer existing cluster and grid infrastructure technologies, and research/prototype new systems and technologies.The post Job of the Week: HPC System Administrator at Purdue appeared first on insideHPC.

Today Intel announced the launch of the Intel Optane SSD 900P Series, the first SSD for desktop PC and workstation users built on Intel Optane technology. "Up to four times faster than competitive NAND-based SSDs, the Intel Optane SSD 900P Series delivers incredibly low latency and best-in-class random read and write performance. The Intel Optane SSD 900P Series is ideal for the most demanding storage workloads, including 3D rendering, complex simulations, fast game load times and more. The device also offers up to 22 times more endurance than other drives."The post Now Shipping: Intel Optane SSDs with 4x Performance of NAND-Based Devices appeared first on insideHPC.

The cost of moving HPC workloads to Iceland is coming down in a big way. Today Verne Global and Tele Greenland announced that the 12.4-Tbps upgrade to the Greenland Connect subsea cable system with three new 100-Gpbs connections into Verne Global’s Icelandic data center, is now complete. The upgraded network provides streamlined routing from Iceland to the New York City metro area, lower latency and up to 90% lower network costs. Tele Greenland has also invested in improving route security to ensure data integrity and protect cables from elemental factors.The post New Subsea Cable Lowers Network Costs from Iceland to North America by 90% appeared first on insideHPC.

Brian Ban continues his series of SC17 Session Previews with a look at an invited talk on nanotechnology. "This talk will focus on the challenges that computational chemistry faces in taking the equations that model the very small (molecules and the reactions they undergo) to efficient and scalable implementations on the very large computers of today and tomorrow."The post SC17 Session Preview: “Taking the Nanoscale to the Exascale” appeared first on insideHPC.

Today German officials signed a contract for the long-term financing of a new supercomputer for DKRZ. The new machine will be used for climate research. "We need to understand much better how climate changes influence our way of life and vice versa - locally and globally," said Katharina Fegebank, Senator for Science, Research and Equality. "This interplay is highly complex. Wise solutions are therefore dependent on sound scientific knowledge."The post Agreement Ensures Ongoing HPC Funding for Climate Research at DKRZ in Germany appeared first on insideHPC.

Andres Gómez Tato from CESGA gave this talk at the HPC Advisory Council Spain Conference. "With the explosion of Deep Learning thanks to the availability of large volume of data, computational resources are needed to train large models, using GPUs and distributed computing. When working on large models, HPC infrastructures can help to speed-up some task during the model design and training. Based on the experience at CESGA and FORTISIMO, this talk reviews the computational needs of Deep Learning, the use cases where HPC can help to Machine Learning, the performance of available Machine Learning APIs and the parallel methods commonly used during ML training."The post Video: HPC Meets Machine Learning appeared first on insideHPC.

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team asks the question: Is the Cloud Killing the Tape Market? The issue came up this week that Spectra Logic is laying off 9 percent of its workforce. “The technology has had its ups and downs over the years, and things look positive for it once again as cloud providers have adopted it as a cost-effective way to handle the growing amount of data being generated, TechTarget, a marketing firm, reported.”The post Radio Free Looks at why the Tape Storage Market is falling on Hard Times appeared first on insideHPC.

Today NCI in Australia announced that it has adopted IBM’s Power8 architecture as part of Raijin, the system fastest supercomputer in the Southern Hemisphere. The hybrid x86/Power8 system will offer local researchers the opportunity to explore the intersection of AI and HPC. "The extraordinary bandwidth in Power Systems provides a significant performance advantage, and we look forward to scientists exploiting those capabilities now and into the future."The post NCI Doubles Raijin Supercomputer Throughput with IBM POWER8 appeared first on insideHPC.

Today the ARCTUR group in Slovenia announced the ARCTUR Be Innovative HPC Challenge. In this contest, 350,000 EUR worth of ARCTUR HPC resources will be granted to the proposal with the most interesting applications. "The goal of the competition is to encourage small and medium enterprises (among others) to scale up their computer simulations and modeling by using ARCTUR HPC infrastructure, writing an interesting use-case demonstrating the benefits of the use of HPC and becoming strategic parters of the company."The post Win Supercomputer Access in the ARCTUR Be Innovative HPC Challenge appeared first on insideHPC.

"In just a few steps, the NVIDIA GPU Cloud (NGC) container registry helps developers get started with no-cost access to a comprehensive, easy-to-use, fully optimized deep learning software stack. The cloud-based service is available immediately to users of the just-announced Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) P3 instances featuring NVIDIA Tesla V100 GPUs. NVIDIA plans to expand support to other cloud platforms soon."The post NVIDIA GPU Cloud comes to AWS with Volta GPUs appeared first on insideHPC.

Intel Compilers 18.0 and Intel Parallel Studio XE 2018 tuning software fully support the AVX-512 instructions. By widening and deepening the vector registers, the new instructions and added enhancements let the compiler squeeze more vector parallelism out of applications than before. Applications compiled with the –xCORE-AVX512 will generate an executable that utilizes these new high-performance instructions.The post Intel Compilers 18.0 Tune for AVX-512 ISA Extensions appeared first on insideHPC.