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

In this Intel Chip Chat podcast, Bill Mannel from HP stops by to discuss the growing demand for high performance computing solutions and the innovative use of HPC to manage big data. He highlights an alliance between Intel and HP that will accelerate HPC and big data solutions tailored to meet the latest needs and workloads of HPC customers, leading with customized vertical solutions.The post Podcast: HP & Intel Accelerate HPC Solutions appeared first on insideHPC.

A warehouse explosion in the city of Tianjin has killed 17 people, resulting in a shutdown of the nearby Tianhe-1A supercomputer. Not to be confused with the Tianhe-2 system (currently ranked at #1), the 2.57 Petaflop Tianhe-1A system is currently #24 on the June 2015 TOP500 list.The post Tianhe-1A Supercomputer Shuts Down After Catastrophic Blast in China appeared first on insideHPC.

Today Fraunhofer ITWM and ThinkParQ announced a new major release of the BeeGFS parallel file system. Now available as a free download, BeeGFS version 2015.03-r1 comes with enterprise features including built-in storage server high-availability based on replication with self-healing, support for access control lists (ACLs), and adds a number of performance and usability improvements.The post New BeeGFS Release Targets High-Availability Storage appeared first on insideHPC.

Today Colfax International announced free online workshops on parallel programming and optimization for Intel architecture, including Intel Xeon processors and Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors. "The Hands-on Workshop (HOW) series will introduce best practices to researchers and developers to efficiently extract maximum performance out of modern parallel processors, achieving shorter time to solution, higher research productivity, and future-proof design."The post Colfax to Offer Free Online Training for Intel Code Modernization appeared first on insideHPC.

This video summarizes the recent Summer of HPC training week in Barcelona. Summer of HPC is a PRACE program that offers summer placements at HPC centers across Europe to late stage undergraduates and early stage postgraduate students. Participants worked on projects related to PRACE scientific or industrial work and ideally produce a visualization or video of their results.The post Video: Summer of HPC Warms up Supercomputing Students in Barcelona appeared first on insideHPC.

The Embree kernel approach, using the Intel Xeon Phi coprocessor is applicable to many situations. The implementation can be tuned to the hardware available, using different vector widths and workloads per ray. With a flexible toolkit for rendering, applications can take advantage of the latest hardware acceleration to achieve maximum performance.The post Ray Tracing with Embree Kernels using Intel Xeon Phi appeared first on insideHPC.

The UberCloud has published their 3rd Compendium of HPC Cloud Case Studies. Like its predecessors in 2013 and 2014, this year’s edition draws from a select group of projects undertaken as part of the UberCloud Experiment. "Our efforts are paying off. Based on the experience gained over the past several years, we have now increased the success rate of the individual experiments to almost 100%, as compared to 40% in 2013 and 60% in 2014."The post UberCloud Publishes 3rd Compendium of HPC Cloud Case Studies appeared first on insideHPC.

"The fast fourier transform (FFT) algorithm is a powerful tool for looking at time-based measurements in an interesting way, but do you understand what it does? This talk will start from basic geometry and explain what the fourier transform is, how to understand it, why it’s useful and show examples. If you’re collecting time-series data (e.g. heart rate, stock prices, server usage, temperature) the fourier transform can be a useful tool for analyzing the underlying periodic nature of the data."The post Video: An Intuitive Introduction to the Fourier Transform and FFT appeared first on insideHPC.

Oak Ridge National Lab recently hosted a Materials Imaging Workshop. Entitled "Big, Deep and Smart Data Analytics in Materials Imaging," the workshop explored research opportunities and challenges arising as imaging and data sciences merge.The post Materials Imaging and Data Sciences Converge at Oak Ridge Workshop appeared first on insideHPC.

Thanks to $13 Million in research funding from NEDO in Japan, the University of Texas at Austin will begin using alternative energy sources to power some of its HPC Clusters.The post NEDO in Japan Funds Solar Research at TACC appeared first on insideHPC.

In this special guest feature, Tom Wilkie from Scientific Computing World writes that software approaches to energy efficiency in HPC may yield unexpected improvements in the hardware of next-generation mobile phone networks. "Adept, a European research project addressing the energy-efficient use of parallel technologies, is expected to release a set of benchmarks that it has developed to characterize the energy consumption of programming models on different architectures."The post Adept Project Looks at Using Software to Conserve Energy appeared first on insideHPC.

Today Super Micro announced the deployment of a new supercomputer in Japan at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) supporting scientists and researchers focused on discovery and innovation in the life, physical and environmental sciences.The post Supermicro Deploys Sango Supercomputer at OIST in Japan appeared first on insideHPC.

"These new flash products greatly expand the range of our total product portfolio and demonstrate how Seagate’s acquisition of the LSI flash technologies is paying off. The Nytro XF1440/XM1440 SSDs deliver the highest performance in the smallest power envelope. The XP6500 flash accelerator card provides ultra-low latency capability for applications that require fast logging and produce significantly higher transactions per second,–something today’s applications demand.”The post Slidecast: Seagate’s New Nytro Flash Products appeared first on insideHPC.

Today transtec in the UK announced that it will build a 1 Petaflop supercomputer for the Karlsruhe Institute for Technology (KIT). With more than 1,100 compute nodes, the solution is worth 6.9 million Euro and is the largest deal in the company’s history.The post Transtec to Build Petaflop Cluster for KIT in Germany appeared first on insideHPC.

As reported here, President Obama established the National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI) in July to ensure the United States continues leading high performance computing over the coming decades. Today, IDC announced what promises to be the first NSCI discussion involving the lead agencies at their next HPC User Forum.The post Lead Agencies for President’s NSCI Initiative to Gather at HPC User Forum appeared first on insideHPC.

In this video from the ISC 2015 conference, Erich Strohmaier from NERSC and Jack Dongarra from University of Tennessee discuss the latest HPC trends reflected in the 45th TOP500 list. "Nine systems in the top 10 were installed in 2011 or 2012, and this low level of turnover among the top supercomputers reflects a slowing trend that began in 2008."The post Interview: Erich Strohmaier & Jack Dongarra on Latest TOP500 appeared first on insideHPC.

Companies already using High-performance Computing (HPC) with a Lustre file system for simulations, such as those in the financial, oil and gas, and manufacturing sectors, want to convert some of their HPC cycles to Big Data analytics. This puts Lustre at the core of the convergence of Big Data and HPC.The post Lustre* at the Core of HPC and Big Data Convergence appeared first on insideHPC.

This is the first article in a two-part series by Rob Farber about the challenges facing the HPC community in training people to write code and develop algorithms for current and future, massively-parallel, massive-scale HPC systems.The post Training the Next Generation of Code Developers for HPC appeared first on insideHPC.

The Intel Blog is featuring profile of Alan Gara, who has designed and built dozens of world-beating supercomputers. "There’s a lot of fun and hard work ahead, but we’re looking forward to it, and it’s a very exciting time here at Intel."The post Intel Profiles Supercomputer Architect Alan Gara appeared first on insideHPC.

The HPC industry's expanded use of liquid cooling was evident at the recent ISC 2015 conference in Frankfurt. To learn more, we caught up with Steve Branton from Asetek.The post Interview: Asetek Rides Rapid Adoption of Liquid Cooling for HPC appeared first on insideHPC.

The deadline for the SC15 Doctoral Showcase submissions has been extended to Aug. 21.The post Deadline Extended for SC15 Doctoral Showcase appeared first on insideHPC.

In this video from the Docker Workshop at ISC 2015, Christian Kniep from QNIB Solutions shows how he uses Docker in his efforts to provide a HPC software stack in a box, encapsulating each layer in the HPC stack within a Linux Container.The post “HPC in a Box” from the Docker Workshop at ISC 2015 appeared first on insideHPC.

"Data centric workloads are growing in importance in high-performance computing and, in an industry that has been dominated by a handful of technologies for several years, this has led users to look for new technologies which better suit such jobs. The demand now is for low power, high memory, and I/O-intensive solutions, so there is a growing niche which can be addressed by solutions which are less focused on Flops performance."The post Chips Evolve for Data Intensive Niches appeared first on insideHPC.

"Since Hurricane Katrina made landfall in 20015, storm prediction technology has seen dramatic forward movement, from improved software to better use of observations and increased computing power - all aimed at giving emergency decision makers more time and specifics to help protect lives and property. The expert panelists in this Congressional Briefing outline research advances that have led to better forecasting of hurricane and tropical storm weather and impacts. And they spotlight research directions that hold promise for future improvements."The post Video: Next-Gen Hurricane Prediction appeared first on insideHPC.

IDC will present a report on ROI for HPC at their next HPC User Forum. The event will take place Sept. 8-10 in Broomfield, CO.The post HPC User Forum to Spotlight High Performance Computing ROI appeared first on insideHPC.

"When Professor Ross Walker explains what he does for a living, he says he’s on the cutting edge of drug discovery research using supercomputers. Today, he and his team build supercomputer molecular biology software thanks in part to a partnership with Intel’s Software Academic Program. The program provides tools and resources to help Walker's molecular dynamics lab develop highly effective supercomputer simulations."The post Video: Drug Discovery Team Finds Inspiration at SDSC appeared first on insideHPC.

Ascentiant International in California is seeking a Senior Linux & HPC Administrator in our Job of the Week.The post Job of the Week: Senior Linux & HPC Administrator at Ascentiant appeared first on insideHPC.

We should all be thankful for the Perennials that keep coming back, year after year. That's the sentiment over at the SC15 Blog, which pays tribute to 18 hearty souls that have attended all 27 of the Supercomputing conferences since they began in 1988.The post A Tribute to the Very First SC Attendees appeared first on insideHPC.

"As a result of a new alliance with Intel, HP is offering its HPC Solutions Framework based on HP Apollo servers, which are specialized for HPC and now optimized to support industry- specific software applications from leading independent software vendors. These solutions will dramatically simplify the deployment of HPC for customers in industries such as oil and gas, life sciences and financial services. The HP Apollo product line integrates Intel’s technology innovation from its HPC scalable system framework, which helps to extend the resilience, reliability, power efficiency and price/performance of the HP Apollo solutions."The post Video: HP Moves Forward with New Business Unit for HPC & Big Data appeared first on insideHPC.

In this special guest feature from Scientific Computing World, Adrian Giordani asks what benchmarks should be applied as the nature of supercomputing changes on the way to exascale.The post How to Measure a Supercomputer’s Speed? appeared first on insideHPC.

The HPC Advisory Council has posted their agenda for the 2nd Annual HPCAC Brazil Conference 2015. The event will take place Aug. 26 at Laboratório Nacional de Computação in Rio de Janeiro.The post Agenda Posted for HPCAC Brazil Conference, Aug. 26 appeared first on insideHPC.

Today the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF) announced the selection of six projects for its Theta Early Science Program (ESP), a collaborative effort designed to help prepare scientific applications for the architecture and scale of the new supercomputer.The post Argonne Selects Theta Supercomputer Early Science Projects appeared first on insideHPC.

In this video from ISC 2015, Dan Olds from Gabriel Consulting interviews Team Spain, the first team ever to use ARM processors in the Student Cluster Competition.The post Video: Team Spain Brings ARM to the Student Cluster Competition appeared first on insideHPC.

Today the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) and Australia’s Academic and Research Network (AARNet) announced a partnership to connect Australian researchers to the US Pacific Research Platform (PRP), a next generation data sharing network linking research universities and supercomputing centers at unprecedented speeds.The post Australia Connects to US Pacific Research Platform appeared first on insideHPC.

In this video from the Velocity 2015 conference, Brendan Gregg from Netflix presents a 90 minute tutorial on Linux performance tools. "There are many performance tools nowadays for Linux, but how do they all fit together, and when do we use them? I’ve spoken on this topic before, but given a 90 minute time slot I was able to include more methodologies, tools, and live demonstrations, making it the most complete tour of the topic I’ve done."The post Video: Brendan Gregg Tutorial on Linux Performance Tools appeared first on insideHPC.

"An expanding area of work both on the hardware front and the software side is to modify and optimize applications to run on both the host processor and a coprocessor. Many techniques to transform applications to reduce runtime have been discussed and implemented across a wide variety of applications."The post Black-Scholes Pricing on Intel Xeon Phi appeared first on insideHPC.

"As the newest flavor of Linux Containers, Docker gained a lot of momentum in the last 12 months. With a very convenient and open API-driven architecture Docker is able to help decrease the complexity of operations and increase the productivity of computation."The post Video: Docker for HPC in a Nutshell appeared first on insideHPC.

"IBM Platform Data Manager for LSF takes control of data transfers to help organizations improve data throughput and lower costs by minimizing wasted compute cycles and conserving disk space. Platform Data Manager automates the transfer of data used by application workloads running on IBM Platform LSF clusters and the cloud, bringing frequently used data closer to compute resources by storing it in a smart, managed cache that can be shared among users and workloads."The post Slidecast: IBM Platform Data Manager for LSF appeared first on insideHPC.

Tom Wilkie reports from ISC 2015 on moves to make it easier for SMEs to access high-performance computing, and on why it matters.The post Bringing HPC to the SME appeared first on insideHPC.

"Modernizing your code on Intel architecture can help you achieve breakthrough performance for highly parallel applications. And, you won’t have to recode your entire problem, or master new tools and programming models."The post Intel Code Modernization Picks Up Steam at ISC 2015 appeared first on insideHPC.

Today Diablo Technologies announced the launch of Memory1, the first all-flash server system memory technology.The post Diablo Rolls Out All-Flash DDR4 Memory appeared first on insideHPC.

Researchers at MIT are using XSEDE resources to study polymers, the chemical compounds used to make plastic, rubber, and more.The post XSEDE Powers Polymer Research at MIT appeared first on insideHPC.

"The framework established between Seagate and Micron has led to the development and production of this next-generation, high-capacity SAS SSD platform. It is the first 12 gigabits-per-second (Gb/s) SAS device to optimize dual channel throughput with up to 1800 megabytes-per-second (MB/s) sequential reads and offer multiple endurance choices within a single hardware and firmware design. These advantages engineered for the 1200.2 SAS SSD ensure it will deliver ultra-fast performance to match the needs of specific enterprise applications and workloads."The post Seagate & Micron Develop Enterprise SSD appeared first on insideHPC.

Today DDN announced that Purdue University has deployed DDN’s SFA high-performance storage to accelerate the delivery of research results for up to 1,000 researchers working on several hundred concurrent projects.The post DDN Solid State Storage Cache Speeds Research at Purdue appeared first on insideHPC.

In this video from ISC 2015, Ross C. Walker from SDSC presents: Amber - The How, What, and Why on Intel Xeon Phi.AMBER is a key application in molecular dynamics used to simulate biocatalysis and the interaction between drug candidates and protein receptors. A feature of AMBER is the ability to use Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors to speed up complex molecular simulations and improves research accuracy."The post Amber – The How, What, and Why on Intel Xeon Phi appeared first on insideHPC.

"By introducing Cavium’s 64-bit ARMv8 CPUs in our Penguin Tundra family of Open Compute servers we again step up our leadership position. Our customers get outstanding value from the efficiency and flexibility enabled by OCP infrastructure combined with workload-optimized performance of Cavium’s ThunderX architecture.”The post Video: Penguin Computing Brings ThunderX to OCP Servers appeared first on insideHPC.

Compute Canada has become the first international partner to join the Women in High Performance Computing (WHPC) network. "Achieving gender balance in advanced research computing is an important goal for Compute Canada," said Mark Dietrich, President and Chief Executive Officer Compute Canada. "This is not just an important equality and balance issue. We know achieving gender balance, and diversity in general, improves innovation and research outputs. In order to meet the growing demand for HPC skillsets that address the increasing requirements of key industrial and academic sectors we must support and grow our skill base in this area."The post Compute Canada Joins Women in HPC Network appeared first on insideHPC.

Cobham has updated their Opera electromagnetic and multiphysics design software. According to Cobham, the Version 18 release of this finite element analysis and simulation software incorporates numerous enhancements to boost functionality, speed and accuracy, while further improving ease of use.The post Cobham Updates Opera Mulitphysics Software appeared first on insideHPC.

In this video from PyCon SG 2015, Anand S. presents: Faster Data Processing in Python. This talk covers methods to process and analyze visualize data faster in Python. The primary focus is on the technique (should you optimize? what to optimize? how to optimize?) while covering libraries that help with this (line_profiler, Pandas, Numba, etc.)The post Video: Faster Data Processing in Python appeared first on insideHPC.