{"62601":{"#nid":"62601","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Engaged in $100 Million Next-Generation Computing Initiative","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EImagine that one of the world\u0027s most powerful high performance computers could be packed into a single rack just 24 inches wide and powered by a fraction of the electricity consumed by comparable current machines.  That would allow an unprecedented amount of computing power to be installed on aircraft, carried onto the battlefield for commanders -- and made available to researchers everywhere.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EPutting this computing power into a small and energy-efficient package, and making it reliable and easier to program, are among the goals of the new DARPA Ubiquitous High Performance Computing (UHPC) initiative.  Georgia Tech researchers from three different units are supporting key components of this $100 million challenge, which will require development of revolutionary approaches not bound by existing computing paradigms.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIf UHPC meets its ambitious eight-year goals, the new approaches and technologies it develops could redefine the way that computing systems are envisioned, designed and used.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022The opportunity we have is to go far beyond the current product roadmaps,\u0022 said David Bader, a professor in Georgia Tech\u0027s School of Computational Science and Engineering.  \u0022We really have the opportunity to change the industry and to design our applications with new computing architectures.  For the first time in the history of computing, we will be able to work with a clean slate.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETo attain the program\u0027s ambitious goals, DARPA funded four groups -- led by NVIDIA Corp., Intel Corp., the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Sandia National Laboratories -- to develop UHPC prototypes.  A fifth group, led by the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), will develop applications, benchmarking and metrics that will be used to drive UHPC system design considerations and support performance analysis of the developing system designs.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Our team is developing a set of five difficult problems of a size and scope that the machines they are talking about should be able to accomplish,\u0022 said Dan Campbell, a GTRI principal research engineer who is co-principal investigator of the benchmarking initiative.  \u0022Our challenge is picking the right problems and specifying them at the right level of abstraction to allow innovation and properly represent what the DoD will need in 2018.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe five problems highlight the unique computing needs of the U.S. military:\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u2022 Analysis of the vast streams of data originating with widespread sensor systems, unmanned aerial vehicles and new generations of radar systems.  The data will be analyzed for nuggets of useful information in ways that are not possible today.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u2022 A dynamic graph challenge, in which many entities interact to create a problem of \u0022connecting the dots.\u0022  That could mean analyzing relationships in social media to find possible adversaries, or understanding network traffic for cyber-security challenges.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u2022 The decision tree, comparable to a chess game in which many possible interconnected options, each with complex implications, must be analyzed quickly.  This could help field commanders or corporate CEOs make better decisions.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u2022 Materials shock and hydrodynamics issues, challenges important to improving future generations of materials.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u2022 Molecular dynamics simulations, which use high-performance computers to understand interactions between very large systems, such as protein folding.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We need to be able to take in a lot more data and understand it a lot more thoroughly than we can now,\u0022 said Mark Richards, a principal research engineer in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and co-principal investigator of the benchmarking team.  \u0022That might allow us to find adversaries we can\u0027t find now because we\u0027re unable to tease that information out of the data flow.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhile the benefits of making such computing power widely available are obvious, how these machines will be designed, built and reliably operated is not.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Meeting these very ambitious program goals will pose significant technical challenges,\u0022 said Bader, who leads application development on the NVIDIA team and is part of the benchmarking group.  \u0022The technology roadmaps in such areas as interconnection networks, microprocessor design and technology fabrication will be pushed to their limits.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMeeting power limitations of just 57 kilowatts per rack -- the amount of electricity produced by a portable military generator -- may be the toughest among them.  The fastest computer currently in operation requires seven megawatts of power.  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Reducing the power consumption means less energy per computation,\u0022 noted Richards.  \u0022But as we lower the device voltage, we get closer to the physical noise.  That will allow more errors due to the physics of the devices, and all kinds of things will have to be done to address that.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAnd the entire machine will have to fit into a 24-inch wide, 78-inch high and 40-inch deep cabinet.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBut the physical implementation of the machines is just one part of the challenge, Bader noted.  How people will work with them poses a perhaps more difficult challenge because it will require thinking about computers in a new way.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Over the past 20 or 30 years, we\u0027ve taken a single computing design and kept tweaking it through advances like miniaturizing parts,\u0022 he said.  \u0022But we really haven\u0027t changed the global nature of how the machine works. To meet DARPA\u0027s power efficiency goals, we really will need to change the way we program the machine.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThat also affects the humans who interact with these highly-parallel machines, which could have as many as a half-million separate threads operating at the same time.  DARPA\u0027s initial goal is to build machines capable of petaflop speed -- a trillion operations per second -- which could lead into the next generation of exascale computers a thousand times more capable.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022We will need to find new ways of thinking about computers that will make it feasible for humans to comprehend what is going on inside,\u0022 Campbell said. \u0022It\u0027s a huge programming challenge.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETo encourage collaboration in solving these complex problems, DARPA has embraced the idea of open innovation.  It expects the organizations to work together on common critical topics, creating a collaborative environment to address the system challenges.  New technology generated by the program -- believed to be today\u0027s largest DoD computing research initiative -- is likely to move quickly into industry.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022There is certainly an expectation among the companies that what they are doing in this project is going to change how we do mainstream computing,\u0022 Bader said. \u0022The technology transfer implications are certainly obvious.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EResearch News \u0026amp; Publications Office\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nGeorgia Institute of Technology\u003Cbr \/\u003E\n75 Fifth Street, N.W., Suite 314\u003Cbr \/\u003E\nAtlanta, Georgia  30308  USA\u003C\/strong\u003E\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMedia Relations Contacts\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon (404-894-6986)(\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:jtoon@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ejtoon@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E); Stefany Sanders (404-894-7253)(\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:stefany@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Estefany@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E) or Kirk Englehardt (404-407-7280)(\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:kirk.englehardt@gtri.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ekirk.englehardt@gtri.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E).\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EWriter\u003C\/strong\u003E: John Toon\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"DARPA Program Will Put Petascale Computer into a 24-inch Cabinet"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech researchers are engaged in a $100 million DARPA program to fit a high performance petaflop computer into a single rack just 24 inches wide and power it with a fraction of the electricity consumed by comparable current machines.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech is supporting a major new computing initiative."}],"uid":"27303","created_gmt":"2010-11-08 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:07:42","author":"John Toon","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2010-11-08T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2010-11-08T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"62602":{"id":"62602","type":"image","title":"Georgia Tech UHPC researchers","body":null,"created":"1449176382","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:59:42","changed":"1475894544","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:42:24","alt":"Georgia Tech UHPC researchers","file":{"fid":"191520","name":"tmv30679.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tmv30679_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tmv30679_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1219104,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/tmv30679_0.jpg?itok=fCDtuHx2"}},"62603":{"id":"62603","type":"image","title":"Georgia Tech UHPC researchers","body":null,"created":"1449176382","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 20:59:42","changed":"1475894544","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:42:24","alt":"Georgia Tech UHPC researchers","file":{"fid":"191521","name":"tvn30679.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tvn30679_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/tvn30679_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":1879576,"path_740":"http:\/\/tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/tvn30679_0.jpg?itok=8DxCHAHI"}}},"media_ids":["62602","62603"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.cse.gatech.edu\/","title":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.ece.gatech.edu\/","title":"School of Electrical and Computer Engineering"},{"url":"http:\/\/www.gtri.gatech.edu\/","title":"Georgia Tech Research Institute"}],"groups":[{"id":"1188","name":"Research Horizons"}],"categories":[{"id":"153","name":"Computer Science\/Information Technology and Security"},{"id":"147","name":"Military Technology"},{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"690","name":"darpa"},{"id":"3427","name":"High performance computing"},{"id":"695","name":"petascale"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EJohn Toon\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EResearch News \u0026amp; Publications Office\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=jt7\u0022\u003EContact John Toon\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404-894-6986\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jtoon@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}