HPC 2015-16 | Market Research
beginning of the year that 50 per cent of high-performance systems would have at least some multi or many core components, and I would stand by that that prediction now. But we have to get to the surveys at the end of the year to see how close we were.’ Tis new paradigm relies on soſtware that
can fully utilise the parallelism offered by these compute accelerators. Tis means that the specific user-base must develop expertise around a specific set of tools for a specific technology. So far, however, this reliance on more complex programming knowledge and tools has not discouraged HPC users and the use of accelerators continues unabated. Conway commented that there had been
a slowdown in purchases of HPC systems in 2014-5, but explained that this trend can be misleading because of the relatively small sample size and large price tag of the top systems. Conway said: ‘In the years 2010 – 2012 particularly, there was unusually large spending on big supercomputers. Te next cycle will be coming in 2016/7 and many of those procurements have already been made. Te market in any one year can be thrown one way or the other by just a few, very large purchases at the top. I think the largest one so far is the K system in Japan, which had a total cost of around $550 million.’ Conway agreed that there had been
a lot of interest around the architectural innovation. He went on to explain that some of these new architectures are driven by a need to explore more specialised models for next-generation HPC systems. He said: ‘Te x86 processor was not designed specifically
for high-performance computing, having come up from the desktop and so forth. It is a kind of loose fit for high-performance computing and, because it is a loose fit, it has opened up opportunities for other processor technologies to come and fill the gap.’ However Conway also stated that the
x86 processor would remain the dominant compute architecture for several years to come, a view shared by Addison Snell.
China In addition to developing technologies to fill gaps in the HPC market, specifically around more data-centric computing, HPC centres in some areas are being asked to wean themselves from a reliance on American HPC technology. Tis is driving a number of home-grown processor technologies – particularly in China. Conway stated: ‘x86 processors are not
very good for data-level parallelism which is where a lot of these other technologies are trying to fill in. Another thing that is going on in China and other places is a desire to have home-grown technology. Tat is a real challenge. But it really is a good thing in a way as it is accompanied by a growing recognition of the strategic value of high- performance computing, not just for science but the economy.’ At ISC this year China presented plans
for a Chinese developed accelerator for use in the Tianhe-2A supercomputer, housed at the National Supercomputer Center in Guangzhou. Tis had been accelerated by the US ban on the sale of Intel processors to
four main supercomputing sites in China. However, Conway stressed that these grassroots development programmes started long before any USD embargo on the sale of CPUs. Conway said: ‘Te Chinese started their
own technology development efforts as far back as the 1980s, maybe further back. Tey have been at this for quite a while, with Shenwei and the other initiatives.’ Conway explained that ‘there has been
this back and forth because of the Chinese government.’ Te government has issued specific mandates around the development of home-grown supercomputing technology, particularly for ‘government affiliated,
“Te Chinese started their own technology development efforts as far back as the 1980s”
government controlled sites including banks and so forth, so called critical infrastructure sites, to rid itself of non-Chinese supercomputers.’ ‘Tat has had a big impact on IBM
in particular, because IBM has had such a strong presence in China, including those critical infrastructure sites. One of the outcomes of IBM’s sale of its x86 business to Lenovo is that, suddenly those IBM supercomputers are no longer IBM supercomputers, they are Lenovo – so they can stay,’ concluded Conway. Lenovo is itself a Chinese company and so the deal allowed it to acquire not only IBM’s x86 technology, but also a large installed customer base in China, including installations in these critical infrastructure sites.
Cloud Cloud has been a hot topic in the HPC industry over the last few years and, while it is not going away, it has so far only found a small user base in the HPC industry. Snell commented that: ‘Cloud is growing, albeit from a very small base within HPC.’ He explained that while HPC users understand cloud and what it can provide, ‘security is a concern, but I think that data movement is a larger concern.’ ‘We see HPC in the cloud growing
predominantly through two use cases. One is the true new user of HPC, who has not done it before and is starting out in the cloud as opposed to buying their own resources.’ Snell explained that by its very definition this
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