Petascale Computers: The Next Supercomputing Wave
Petascale Computers: The Next Supercomputing Wave
IT News Australia (11/29/07)Â
Academics are focusing their attention on petascale computers that can perform 1 quadrillion, or 1 million billion, operations per second, almost 10 times faster than today’s fastest supercomputers. Petascale computing is expected to create solutions to global challenges such as environmental sustainability, disease prevention, and disaster recovery. “Petascale Computing: Algorithms and Applications,” by Georgia Tech computing professor David A. Bader, was recently released, becoming the first published collection on petascale techniques for computational science and engineering. Bader says the past 50 years has seen a fundamental change in the scientific method, with computation joining theory and experimentation as a means for scientific discovery. “Computational science enables us to investigate phenomena where economics or constraints preclude experimentation, evaluate complex models and manage massive data volumes, model processes across interdisciplinary boundaries, and transform business and engineering practices,” Bader says. However, petascale computing will also create new challenges in designing algorithms and applications. “Several areas are important for this task: scalable algorithm design for massive concurrency, computational science and engineering applications, petascale tools, programming methodologies, performance analyses, and scientific visualization,” Bader says. He expects to see the first peak petascale systems in 2008, with sustained petascale systems following shortly behind.
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