The Race to Exascale Getting Artificial Intelligence and Big Data up to Speed
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Issue 06 July 2019 SUPERCOMPUTING aSIa 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 THE RACE TO EXASCALE GETTING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND BIG DATA UP TO SPEED IT'S A MATERIAL WORLD A QUANTUM LEAP INTO THE FUTURE MOVE IT! MCI (P) 037/04/2019 Issue 06 CONTENTS July 2019 FEATURES p. 24 A Quantum Leap into the Future Building an ‘unhackable’ internet p. 28 Move it! Helping big data go round the globe p. 32 Scaling New Heights at SCA19 Highlights from SupercomputingAsia 2019 p. 6 Digital Dispatch Supercomputing news from around the world p. 10 It’s a Material World How high-performance computing is transforming the material world COVER STORY p. 36 Business Bytes p. 18 The latest industry moves p. 38 THE RACE TO Super Snapshot EXASCALE India’s need for speed Getting artificial intelligence and big data up to speed Data Mover Challenge 2020 Topology SUPERCOMPUTING SINET 100G aSIa DTN @ KREONET2 Denmark 100G DTN @ TransPAC- EDITOR’S NOTE EDITORIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE London, Paris PacificWave Prof. Tan Tin Wee DTN @ 100G Seattle Surfnet DTN @ Prof. Satoshi Matsuoka DTN @ Chicago New York South Korea SINET 100G Prof. John Gustafson n this issue, we celebrate yet another successful Yves Poppe DTN @ Japan SingAREN-NICT LA edition of the annual SupercomputingAsia 100G conference, which saw more than 700 research CEO & PUBLISHER NII-SingAREN Dr. Juliana Chan 100G SingAREN- and industry delegates from around the world flock CAE-1 Internet2 100G 100G to Singapore on March 12-14, 2019 (Scaling New Singapore EDITOR-IN-CHIEF DTN @ AARNET-SXTransPORT Heights At SCA19, p. 32). We take a look at India’s Dr. Rebecca Tan 100G National Supercomputing Mission, a seven-year project DIGITAL EDITOR I AARNET- with a budget of US$640 million to build a network of Dr. Jeremy Chan SingAREN 100Gbps Link (Active) 73 high performance computing centers—three of them 100G petascale—linking research institutions across India CONTRIBUTORS DTN @ 100Gbps Link (Backup) Australia *Pictorial Illustration Only (India’s Need For Speed, p. 38). Barry Lo Materials scientists have traditionally been one of the Eugene Low Yvonne Gao biggest users of supercomputers and continue to harness Li Lidao Data Mover the power of high performance computing to make new breakthroughs. Check out It’s A Material World (p. 10), to SENIOR DESIGNERS find out how they are designing exciting new materials Lam Oi Keat Challenge 2020 (DMC20) Muhamad Azlin from radiation-tolerant ceramics to super hydrophobic polymers for cleaning up oil spills. In A Quantum Leap SALES & MARKETING Into The Future (p. 24), find out whether advances in Samantha Yeap Are you the best at moving huge amounts of quantum key distribution mean that we will soon enjoy Grace Phua research data across 100G links? an ‘unhackable’ quantum internet. PUBLISHED BY Finally, we turn our attention to the most exciting Wildtype Media Group Pte Ltd Global research cooperation is increasing. Science is transforming and becoming more data sport in supercomputing—the race to build the world’s first intensive due to larger and more precise instruments. There is an increasing demand for the DISTRIBUTED BY exascale supercomputer. Japan is en route to launching The winners of the DMC20 capability to effect the sharing of large amounts of research data, quickly and securely, between Pansing Distribution Pte Ltd collaborating entities or computational resources. its first exascale computer—Post-K is set for launch will be announced at HEAD OFFICE between 2021 and 2022, with Fujitsu announcing SupercomputingAsia 2020 DMC20’s theme, ‘Data for Science’, addresses the need for higher speeds and better coordination that its design has already been completed. The US’ Wildtype Media Group Pte Ltd (SCA20), 24-27 February when moving large amounts of data between multiple sites with Data Transfer Nodes (DTNs), as exascale computer, Aurora, is scheduled 71 Ayer Rajah Crescent #07-03 Singapore 139951 2020, Singapore! well as to HPC centres around the world. for delivery by Intel in 2021. How Tel: 65-6909-2279 will China stack up in this race to Website: www.asianscientist.com/subscribe Organised by the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore, DMC20 challenges exascale? Find out in our interview international teams to provide the best solutions to these complex and growing issues. with Professor Lu Yutong, director For enquiries about the challenge or any other details, please contact [email protected]. of the National Supercomputing Center in Guangzhou, China (The Race To Exascale, p. 18). Supporting Partners: Combining savvy communication with technical rigor, Wildtype Media Group is Asia’s leading STEM-focused media company, spanning digital, print, custom Rebecca Tan, Ph.D. publishing and events. Brands under Wildtype Media Group include the flagship Asian Scientist Magazine iCAIR Editor-in-chief and Supercomputing Asia, award-winning titles available in print and online. 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Information is correct at time of printing. 06 / SUPERCOMPUTING ASIA / ISSUE 06 ISSUE 06 / SUPERCOMPUTING ASIA / 07 Digital Dispatch UK’S ‘MICHAEL’ INDIA’S JAPANESE-US TEAM CREATES FIRST SUPERCOMPUTER SUPERCOMPUTER SUPERCOMPUTING BILLION-ATOM SIMULATION OF DNA TO ACCELERATE MISSION INKS ATOS An international research team has created 41 petaFLOPS. Their findings were published BATTERIES RESEARCH CONTRACT the largest simulation to date of an entire in the Journal of Computational Chemistry TRAVELS TO SPACE gene locus of DNA, a feat that required one in April 2019. A new supercomputer specifically A novel ‘space-qualified’ supercomputer, breadbox, includes dual high-resolution India’s Centre for Development of billion atoms to model. Using both dedicated to speeding up battery developed by the University of Pittsburgh, cameras capable of snapping five-megapixel Advanced Computing (C-DAC) has DNA is the blueprint for all living experimental data research in the UK has been installed set off on a journey to space on May 1, 2019. images of Earth. entered into a three-year contract things. With enough DNA inside us and novel computer at University College London. This radiation-tolerant computer Space is a challenging place for with French technology firm Atos, to wrap around the earth 2.5 million modeling algorithms, the Named Michael, after the UK’s cluster, called the Spacecraft Supercomputing computers to thrive due to high fluctuations for the latter to supply its BullSequana times, this string-like molecule has to researchers constructed the most famous battery scientist, Michael for Image and Video Processing (SSIVP) in temperatures, strong vibrations during supercomputers. be compacted and wound up in first atomistic model of an entire Faraday, the supercomputer will reach system, traveled 250 miles skyward with launch and higher levels of radiation—all This contract is part of the a network of tiny spool-like gene locus of GATA4 packaged in 265 teraFLOPS at peak performance. the SpaceX-17 mission to the International of which can affect performance. National Supercomputing Mission structures called chromatin. chromatin. Purchased by the Faraday Space Station, where it will spend the next During this time, the supercomputer (NSM), a seven-year plan of Rs 4,500 The team, which “It is important to understand Institution at £1.6 million (~US$2 three to four years. will gather and monitor data on weather crore (~US$ 650 million) that aims included researchers DNA at this level of detail because million) through the UK Government’s “[It will be] one of the most powerful patterns, deforestation, the effects of natural to create a network of over 70 high- from the RIKEN Center we want to understand precisely how Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, space-qualified computers ever made disasters on Earth, and the effects of space performance computing facilities for Computational genes