HPC 2017-18 | Contents Contents A change of pace


While it is not yet time for the transition to exascale, much of the work is well underway and this is driving significant change in the HPC soſtware and hardware ecosystem. Tere are other changes coming from the explosion of interest in AI and machine learning and also in the way that supercomputing performance is measured. Te impact of AI and machine learning research is the


CAE turns to HPC Firing up a continent 4


Robert Roe interviews Ansys Wim Slagter on the use of HPC in computer aided engineering and design


6


Nox Moyake reports on efforts to develop and support HPC infrastructure in South Africa


AI drives new computing technologies 10


Robert Roe looks at the development of AI and machine learning technology and its impact on computing hardware development


Continental ambitions The path to energy efficiency


Adrian Giordani explores the methods used to calculate exascale performance


HPC application development 26


Gemma Church looks at the development of HPC applications and the challenges that developers must overcome to scale software on some of the world’s largest supercomputers


Suppliers directory 29


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Robert Roe examines efforts to reach exascale computing from both the EU and the US


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focus on page 10, as we explore the impact of this technology on the HPC market and the development of new processing technologies. On Page 14, Robert Roe explores European and US plans


for exascale. While both groups support approaches to co- design they have very different approaches to architecture and underlying hardware that will power the future exascale supercomputers. Te ways in which HPC performance can be measured


are examined by Adrian Giordani on page 20. Giordani finds that the FLOPs centric methods used in the past are no longer suitable as memory and data access become more important to sustained performance on next generation HPC systems. On page 26 Gemma Church explores application


development and the challenges to scaling soſtware to extreme levels on some of the world’s largest supercomputers. Also featured in the magazine we have an interview with


Ansys on the use of Computer aided engineering (CAE) soſtware in HPC that is featured on page 4. Tere is also an in-depth look at supercomputing in South Africa on page 6. Tis piece from Nox Moyake looks at the development of supercomputing infrastructure from its inception in 1994 to future projects such as assisting with the Square kilometre Array (SKA).


Tim Gillett Managing editor


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