More than ever, high-performance computing (HPC) is enabling researchers and scientists to discover new insights that have never been possible before. Two major themes are defining today’s HPC era: a global race toward exascale-class computing, and simultaneously, a convergence between HPC, big data and artificial intelligence (AI). Intel is committed to continue delivering the foundational elements of both trends. And at this year’s Supercomputing show in Denver, Intel will showcase its rich portfolio and plans for the future. In addition, the recent introduction of the Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor represents a significant leap forward in performance and efficiency in a decade with a 41x performance gain over the past 10 generations.1 Intel is enabling scalable performance for a broad range of HPC systems from the smallest clusters to the world’s largest supercomputers, while processing various AI and big data workloads.
The Global Race to Exascale Computing
Exascale is the next leap in supercomputing – delivering a quintillion calculations per second, which is more than 10 times greater than the largest system today.2 Exascale has the potential to solve some of the world’s toughest challenges – from enabling gene therapies to addressing climate change to accelerating space exploration. This ability for significant scientific breakthrough is increasing global interest in accelerating the delivery of exascale-class systems with many nations pursuing a faster pace to this technology goal. For example, the U.S. Department of Energy has accelerated its timeline for delivery of an exascale system by two years, now targeting delivery by 2021.3
Intel has been collaborating with many global academic and national research institutions on their unique HPC needs for the path to exascale. One of the most exciting efforts has been with the U.S. Argonne National Labs as part of the CORAL program. Recently, the Department of Energy announced it intends to deploy the first U.S. exascale system based on Intel technology, demonstrating a significant level of confidence in the Intel roadmap and portfolio of technologies designed for exascale-class computing. To meet its customers’ needs in exascale, Intel has shifted the focus of collaboration toward a new platform and microarchitecture specifically designed for HPC, big data and AI at the highest scale. With its breadth and depth of technologies across compute, storage, interconnects and software, Intel has the optimal foundation for exascale computing.
Delivering HPC Workload-Optimized Solutions
HPC is increasingly being deployed in a variety of new commercial and academic settings where familiarity with high-performance clusters may not be as prevalent. For a long time, Intel has collaborated with the HPC community and developer ecosystem to help accelerate deployment some of the best-in-class HPC systems. Today, Intel announced the addition of a new family of HPC solutions to the Intel® Select Solutions program. Built on the latest Intel® Xeon® Scalable platforms, Intel Select Solutions are verified configurations designed to speed and simplify the evaluation and deployment of data center infrastructure while meeting a high-performance threshold.
Intel announced the addition of the Intel Select Solutions for the HPC market, including Intel® Select Solutions for Simulation and Modeling, which will help more companies accelerate product designs that offer greater levels of customization and optimization. The second is Intel® Select Solutions for Genomics Analytics, which delivers performance, scale and ease of deployment to fuel further life
science research to improve medical treatments. The Intel Select Solutions for Genomics Analytics builds on a collaboration between Intel and the Broad Institute* known as the Broad-Intel Genomics Stack (BIGstack) v2.0 with several solution vendors currently supporting them.
OEMs will soon begin offering platforms based on Intel Select Solutions for HPC from global solution providers such as Atipa*, Boston Ltd*, Colfax*, E4 Computer Engineering*, Exxact*, Inspur*, Lenovo*, Megware*, Nortech*, RSC* and Supermicro*.
Delivering More Compute Capacity with Enhanced Intel® Omni-Path Architecture Features
Intel announced a new 48-port leaf module with a double density connector for dense Intel Omni-Path 100 series director switch solutions. With the 48-port module offering, the existing director switch chassis can now support 50 percent more ports, or up to 1152 ports in the 20U chassis. This helps reduce the number of switches, freeing up budget for more compute nodes, to help users run their HPC and deep learning jobs faster. The 48-port leaf module will be available early in 2018.
SPEAKING SESSION: Intel Addresses Convergence of AI and HPC to Increase Data Intelligence
The convergence of AI is rapidly becoming a desired approach for next-generation HPC solutions to deliver new levels of insight. At SC17, Pradeep Dubey, Intel Fellow and Director of Parallel Computing Lab, will discuss how the convergence of AI, big data, HPC systems and algorithmic advances are transforming the relationship between computers and humans, disrupting past notions of a partnership where humans made all the “intelligent” decisions. The session Artificial Intelligence and The Virtuous Cycle of Compute, will be held on Nov. 15 from 3:15 – 4:30 p.m. MST at the Mile High Ballroom at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver.
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