RadioFreeHPC

Is Our Future Liquid Cooled? Also: Provenance of Surveillance Data!

August 05, 2019 08:58 - 13.1 MB

The Veracity and Provenance of Surveillance Data Controversy strikes when news breaks that “Amazon’s home security company Ring has enlisted local police departments around the country to advertise its surveillance cameras in exchange for free Ring products and a “portal” that allows police to request footage from these cameras, a secret agreement obtained by Motherboard… Read More »Is Our Future Liquid Cooled? Also: Provenance of Surveillance Data!

Is cloud too expensive for HPC?

July 30, 2019 07:43

Is cloud too expensive for HPC? Enquiring minds want to know, as does the HPC community whose single-minded obsession with maximum price-performance is notorious and legendary. The Radio Free team looks at actual cloud pricing based on available data and Dan's research which fuel a hearty discussion. They look at configurations, compare prices, talk about the costs that are not included, segment the market, and then segment the applications. Catch of the Week Henry: Henry highlights of th...

Is Cloud Too Expensive for HPC?

July 30, 2019 07:39 - 15.9 MB

Is cloud too expensive for HPC? Enquiring minds want to know, as does the HPC community whose single-minded obsession with maximum price-performance is notorious and legendary. The Radio Free team looks at actual cloud pricing based on available data and Dan’s research which fuel a hearty discussion. They look at configurations, compare prices, talk about… Read More »Is Cloud Too Expensive for HPC?

Quantum Apps Are Hybrid

July 23, 2019 08:35 - 14 MB

“Quantum applications are always and only hybrid” is the quote that Shahin wants you to remember as he gives an update on recent news in Quantum Computing, and especially how to program them. If you’re always going to have to mix classical code with quantum code then you need an environment that is built for… Read More »Quantum Apps Are Hybrid

HPC Market Eyes $44B in 5 Years

July 18, 2019 09:09 - 12.5 MB

HPC Market Eyes $44B New report from Hyperion Research has the HPC+AI market growing to $44B, with a B, in 5 years. The industry is hitting on all cylinders, benefiting from The ExaScale race, AI coming to the enterprise only to find that it needs, or really is, HPC, depending on your point of view,… Read More »HPC Market Eyes $44B in 5 Years

ExaScale is a 4-way Competition

July 07, 2019 01:18 - 11.4 MB

ExaScale is a 4-way Competition In this post-ISC show, the RadioFree team discusses Magical cooling technology from Europe. Dan goes over magic beads that draw heat away and can carry-on doing it pretty much forever in a technology from the venerable Fraunhofer Institute and showcased by Lenovo. How pursuit of ExaScale computing is turning into… Read More »ExaScale is a 4-way Competition

Why did HPE buy Cray?

July 03, 2019 18:45 - 12.8 MB

Why did HPE buy Cray? The RFHPC team tackles the HPE-Cray acquisition as it reviews the companies’ recent moves and strengths and market conditions in the context of: the 5-tier data center application architecture: Embedded, Mobile, Desktop, On-premises, Off-premises the emergence of AI as a must-do enterprise app, and increasing commonality between supercomputers and enterprise… Read More »Why did HPE buy Cray?

Quantum Computing and HPC

June 21, 2019 02:11 - 40.6 MB

Quantum Computing and HPC Another scintillating and insightful episode of RFHPC is about Quantum Computing and HPC and how the two spaces are evolving and cooperating. We welcome a a distinguished guest with a most suitable background to talk to us about HPC and Quantum Computing. Mike Booth, who’s been in supercomputing since 1979 including… Read More »Quantum Computing and HPC

TOP500 Jun2019, Facebook Coin

June 17, 2019 07:48 - 21.7 MB

The new TOP500 list of most powerful supercomputers is out and we do our usual quick analysis. Not much changed in the TOP10 but a lot is changing further down the list. Here is a quick take: There are 65 new entries in 2019. US science is receiving support via DOE sites and academic sites like TACC.… Read More »TOP500 Jun2019, Facebook Coin

Forty+ different AI chips

June 09, 2019 09:31 - 14.7 MB

What are we going to do with 40+ different AI chips? This week, the team looks at AI chips again, this time motivated by an article in EE Times about once such chip, Graphcore, and touts it as “the most complex processor” ever at some 20 billion transistors. The VC-backed company out of Bristol, UK is… Read More »Forty+ different AI chips

Amdahl's Law and GPUs, Asian Student Cluster Competition

June 03, 2019 06:55 - 37 MB

Results of the Asian Student Cluster Competition In this episode, Dan has just come back from China and reviews the results of the Asian Student Cluster Competition and HPC workshop. For the first time, a non-mainland-Chinese team wins the top spot. Taiwan takes the gold in part by their stellar performance in HPCG benchmark where… Read More »Amdahl's Law and GPUs, Asian Student Cluster Competition

In-Memory, Caching, Persistence

May 03, 2019 20:50 - 44.4 MB

Asian Student Cluster Competition The ever-popular “calendar segment” is back (yes, that is us being sarcastic) as Dan describes his upcoming trip to Dalian, China for the Asian Student Cluster competition. 20 teams are expected to compete, mostly from mainland China, but also from Europe, South America and other parts of Asia. All of them… Read More »In-Memory, Caching, Persistence

Black Hole Seen, with Data to Match

April 25, 2019 09:20 - 29.4 MB

Here’s this week’s synopsis. Black Holes Visualized The news of the cool visualization of an actual black hole leads to interesting issues in HPC land. Shahin is at pains to give credit where it is due while considering it as an achievement in data visualization not unlike many others before it. Yes, it’s about a… Read More »Black Hole Seen, with Data to Match

Enterprises going HPC, Chips go Open Source, China goes for the top spot

April 11, 2019 22:31

We continue to want to make these introductions pretty brief here but not this time, apparently! Here's this week's synopsis. Nvidia GTC 2019 announcements We discussed the recent GTC conference. Dan has been attending since well before it became the big and important conference that it is today. We get a quick update on what was covered: the long keynote, automotive and robotics, the Mellanox acquisition, how a growing fraction of enterprise applications will be AI. In agreement with the ...

Enterprises go HPC, Chips go Open Source, China goes for the top spot

April 11, 2019 22:17 - 38.3 MB

We continue to want to make these introductions pretty brief here but not this time, apparently! Here’s this week’s synopsis. Nvidia GTC 2019 announcements We discussed the recent GTC conference. Dan has been attending since well before it became the big and important conference that it is today. We get a quick update on what… Read More »Enterprises go HPC, Chips go Open Source, China goes for the top spot

Multicore Scaling Slow Down, and Fooling AI

March 25, 2019 06:24 - 31.7 MB

The team has an animated discussion about multicore scaling, how easy it seems to be to mislead AI systems, and some good sized catches of the week. A common thread is “data” as is often the case these days. Dan makes a couple of important announcements. First is the idea that is brewing about revamping… Read More »Multicore Scaling Slow Down, and Fooling AI

AI: Realness and Bias

March 16, 2019 07:58 - 29 MB

Starting with this episode, we’ll get a bit more efficient in describing the episodes. Please let us know if you prefer the long format. If you just subscribe on iTunes and never see these words, well, that tells us something too! In this episode, the team discusses AI, bias in AI, and just how real… Read More »AI: Realness and Bias

Nvidia, Mellanox: Married!

March 11, 2019 18:41 - 14.7 MB

Big news in the industry today was Nvidia buying Mellanox for $6.9B. This called fo an emergency session of our crack panel. While it will be several months before the full impact of this merger is felt, the RFHPC team believes this will change both the HPC and the Datacenter markets. It also signals Nvidia’s… Read More »Nvidia, Mellanox: Married!

Arm for Exascale is Coming

March 10, 2019 00:04 - 30 MB

The show starts with a brief reference to Henry’s “Gator” nickname, a shout out to listeners 13, 14, and 15, plus a bad Arm processor pun. (Puns are the lowest form of humor other than limericks, Dan wits.) This is an Arm heavy show, with our opening discussion concerning the Arm system at Sandia and… Read More »Arm for Exascale is Coming

The sinking of the Itanic, a respectful farewell

March 05, 2019 09:10 - 31.2 MB

Our conversation begins with Dan berating Henry for cheaping out on a new headset for our Radio Free HPC recordings. (Henry has since relented and pried open his wallet to purchase a truly fine headset.) Finally, we get on to the show proper. After years of futility, Intel has finally put a stake in the… Read More »The sinking of the Itanic, a respectful farewell

Supercomputing to Modernize the Electric Grid

February 15, 2019 07:20 - 18.6 MB

We open the show by talking some weather. It’s so cold at Henry’s house (in Minnesota) that he’s becoming a human superconductor and quantum computing experimenters are showing up at his house to test their systems under uber cold conditions. Shahin adds an inane joke about cold and levitation that Dan threatens to cut out… Read More »Supercomputing to Modernize the Electric Grid

What's an AI Supercomputer? What's up with software SMP?

February 11, 2019 18:36 - 22.9 MB

We start our discussion by contemplating the fact that Shahin doesn’t have a middle name (he says he never needed one) and touching on why Henry has picked up the nick name ‘Gator’ Newman. What’s an AI supercomputer? Our first topic is whether a supercomputer can or cannot be a “AI Supercomputer.” This is based… Read More »What's an AI Supercomputer? What's up with software SMP?

China Exascale Again (Tianhe-3 is coming), GDPR shows its teeth

February 02, 2019 02:22 - 16.9 MB

After a short talk about the weather in Henry’s basement (it had just reached 60 F by the time we recorded the show), we got right down to business with an important announcement: our pal Rich Brueckner is leaving the show. He just has too much on his plate and something had to give. While… Read More »China Exascale Again (Tianhe-3 is coming), GDPR shows its teeth

Weather Forecasting Goes Crowdsourcing, Q means Quantum

January 25, 2019 10:02 - 16.3 MB

In this episode of Radio Free HPC, Dan, Henry, and Shahin start with a spirited discussion of IBM’s recent announcement regarding their crowd sourced weather prediction application. Henry was dubious as to whether Big Blue could get access to the data they need in order to truly put out a valuable product. Dan had questions… Read More »Weather Forecasting Goes Crowdsourcing, Q means Quantum

A Look Back at the 2018 CHPC Conference in South Africa

December 31, 2018 15:23 - 10.6 MB

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks back at the highlights of the 2018 CHPC Conference in South Africa. With over 500 attendees, the event featured a set of keynotes on high performance computing as well as a Student Cluster Challenge and a Cyber Security Competition. The comprehensive program included national and international… Read More »A Look Back at the 2018 CHPC Conference in South Africa

RFHPC215: A Hard Look at Santa's Big Data Challenges

December 28, 2018 18:18 - 19.6 MB

In this podcast video, the Radio Free HPC team looks at the monumental IT challenges that Santa faces each Holiday Season. With nearly 2 billion children to serve, Santa’s operations are an IT challenge on the grandest scale. If the world’s population keeps growing by 83 million people per year, Santa may need to build a hybrid… Read More »RFHPC215: A Hard Look at Santa's Big Data Challenges

RFHPC214: A Look at TOP500 Trends on the Road to Exascale

November 26, 2018 14:25 - 30.2 MB

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at the semi-annual TOP500 BoF presentation by Jack Dongarra. The TOP500 list of supercomputers serves as a “Who’s Who” in the field of High Performance Computing (HPC). It started as a list of the most powerful supercomputers in the world and has evolved to a major source of… Read More »RFHPC214: A Look at TOP500 Trends on the Road to Exascale

RFHPC213: Running Down the TOP500 at SC18

November 17, 2018 18:13 - 44.5 MB

In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks back on the highlights of SC18 and the newest TOP500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers. The latest TOP500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers is out, a remarkable ranking that shows five Department of Energy supercomputers in the top 10, with the first two captured… Read More »RFHPC213: Running Down the TOP500 at SC18

Episodes