PARIS, Aug. 28, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE:
IBM) and GENCI, the high performance computing agency in
France, today announced a
collaboration aimed at speeding up the path to exascale computing –
the ability of a computing system to perform at least one exaflop,
or a billion billion calculations, in one second.
Currently the fastest systems in the world perform between ten
and 33 petaflops, or ten to 33 million billion calculations per
second – roughly one to three percent the speed of exascale.
Put into context, if exascale computing is the equivalent of an
automobile reaching 1000 miles per hour, today's fastest systems
are running within a range between ten and 33 miles per hour.
The collaboration, planned to run for at least 18 months,
focuses on readying complex scientific applications for systems
under development expected to achieve more than 100 petaflops, a
solid step forward on the path to exascale. Working closely with
supercomputing experts from IBM, GENCI will have access to some of
the most advanced high performance computing technologies stemming
from the rapidly expanding OpenPOWER ecosystem. Supported by
more than 140 OpenPOWER Foundation members and thousands of
developers worldwide, the OpenPOWER ecosystem includes a wide
variety of computing solutions that use IBM's licensable and open
POWER processor technology.
As part of the collaboration, GENCI will closely examine the
impact and requirements of POWER's open architecture on scientific
applications, intending to foster a deeper understanding of
application requirements as the computing industry advances towards
exascale computing with an increased interest in accelerator
technologies.
The collaboration will attempt to take full advantage of the
impact of OpenPOWER-based innovations such as the connection of
NVIDIA GPUs accelerators to POWER processors through the high-speed
NVIDIA® NVLink™ interconnect, as well as how Mellanox EDR 100Gb/s
InfiniBand switches can exploit IBM's Coherent Application
Processor Interface (CAPI) to dramatically improve solution
performance. Additionally, experts from GENCI and French research
organizations together with IBM plan to work on understanding the
evolution of programming models, considering MPI and OpenMP as a
first step for shared memory multiprocessing programming.
Alternative application program interfaces will also be considered,
given potential changes may be required as systems move closer
toward exascale.
"If we want to continue to address the challenges of the French
scientists and engineers, we need to anticipate the rise of new
high performance computing architectures that bring us closer to
exascale and prepare our communities," stated Catherine Riviere, CEO of GENCI.
IBM will provide dedicated technical experts to support
application porting and optimization efforts as well as organizing
along with GENCI education and porting sessions. This collaboration
will be supported by the newly created POWER Acceleration and
Design Center in Montpellier as part of the partnership established
with both NVIDIA and Mellanox. The Center will provide technical
expertise around scientific applications, programming models and
systems, as well as early access to forthcoming 2016 platforms and
the latest innovative technologies (NVIDIA NVLink, IBM CAPI), the
IBM high performance computing (HPC) software stack and the NVIDIA
Tesla Accelerated Computing Platform.
"The work we are doing with GENCI -- bringing together some of
the best minds in science and information technology – is a
collaborative effort on a grand scale involving not just GENCI and
IBM, but thousands of developers contributing to the rapidly
expanding OpenPOWER ecosystem worldwide," said Michel Teyssedre, CTO of IBM France. "We fully
expect our collaborative efforts will produce innovations capable
of moving the supercomputing industry that much closer to
exascale."
About GENCI – www.genci.fr/en
Created in 2007 by the French government with the aim of placing
France among the leading countries
within Europe and on the
international stage in the field of HPC, GENCI has three main
missions:
- To lead the French national strategy in terms of HPC capacities
for the benefit of public researchers in link with the three
national computing centers;
- To participate in the realization of an integrated European HPC
ecosystem;
- To promote numerical simulation and HPC, within the academic
and industrial communities.
To learn more about OpenPOWER, visit
www.openpowerfoundation.org
Media Contacts:
IBM Global Communications
Kristin Bryson
Tel: +1 203-241-9190
kabryson@us.ibm.com
GENCI
Laetitia
Baudin
Tel: + 33 (0) 6 16 27 68 73
laetitia.baudin@genci.fr
IBM France
Gaëlle Dussutour
Tel: + 33 (0) 1 58 75 17 96
DUSGA@fr.ibm.com
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SOURCE IBM