JUNE 2006 - SPECIAL ISSUE IN PARTNERSHIP WITH BULL AND INTEL High Performance Computing Tera 10: beyond 50 thousand billion operations per second Editorial The lightning growth of intensive computing oday, researchers, engineers an architecture promising a million they will require a 100 to 10,000- and entrepreneurs in vir- operations a second for a cost of just fold increase in computing capacity Ttually every field are finding a million dollars. Thirty years on within the next 10-20 years. that high-performance computing – with the advances in electronic In this frenetic race, there is general (HPC) is starting to play a central circuit technology and the science agreement that France has not pro- role in maintaining their competi- of computer simulation – a mil- gressed as fast as we would have wan- tive edge: in research and business lion times that processing power is ted over the past few years. In order activities alike. now available for an equivalent cost. to be effective and consistent, it is Advances in scientific research Today’s most powerful machine deli- not enough just to give the scientific have always depended on the link vers 280 teraflops, and there are plans community the most powerful com- between experimental and theore- in the near future for a 1 petaflop puters. Active support for research tical work. The emergence of the machine in China and a 5 petaflop and higher education into algorithms supercomputer opened up a whole machine in Japan. and the associated computer sciences new avenue: high-powered compu- Where will this progress lead us? is also essential. In 2005, we saw the ter simulation. By approaching many The petaflop (1015) machines will first signs of this starting to materia- traditional research and engineering soon be with us, which suggests that lize, with a broad, inter-ministerial questions from a new angle, simu- high-performance computing will consultation and the consolidation lation lets us explore even the most continue to progress at the same of a number of computing centers Bernard complex phenomena. kind of rapid pace for years or even at the national, and even European, Bigot We can estimate the cost of a typical decades to come. The performance level. This issue surveys these latest High basic arithmetic operation by com- of algorithms is also increasing at developments and various propo- Commissioner paring mechanical machines from a comparable rate. For some linear sals for the future, while also cas- for Atomic Energy. the 17th and 19th centuries (develo- algorithms, the number of proces- ting a backwards glance at the main ped by Pascal and Babbage respec- sing operations required has fallen by steps leading up to the situation we *CERFACS : tively), with modern computers that a factor of 108 over the past 35 years. know today. We hope this contribu- Centre Européen are based on von Neumann’s archi- No matter what kind of hardware is tes to mobilizing the forces needed to de Recherche tecture (1945) and exploit the capa- involved, high-performance compu- achieve the progress we’re all hoping et de Formation Avancée bilities of semi-conductors (1956). ting is a major strategic challenge on for in scientific computing! en Calcul This cost has fallen by a factor of all three key fronts: industrial, tech- So here we are, in 2006, in the mid- Scientifique, 1015 between the earliest machines nological and scientific. dle of teraflop era. By 2015, will we The European and the latest generation of com- However, a recent conference held at already have entered the exaflop Centre for puters, with their intrinsic power CERFACS* concluded that a num- (1018) era? And where will France Research and 12 Advanced expressed in teraflops (or 10 ope- ber of looming questions remain and Europe stand? There is every- Training in rations a second). unanswered. If these are to be tackled thing to play for in this debate. Scientific In the mid 1970s, Cray developed effectively, depending on the subject Bernard Bigot Computation. LA RECHERCHE SPECIAL ISSUE - HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING | JUNE 2006 | 3 High performance computing 3 EDITORIAL by Bernard Bigot This special issue is adapted from "Le calcul haute Jean-Michel Ghidaglia and Benoît Rittaud performance", which has been 6 9 questions about numerical simulation distributed in January 2006 with La Recherche n° 393 Paul Caseau and Christian Saguez and realised in partnership 16 The breakthrough of high performance computing with Bull, Intel, Inria and Hewlett-Packard. Interview of Jean Gonnord 20 “Europe is back in supercomputing” Jean Gonnord, Pierre Leca and François Robin 26 Beyond 50 thousand billion operations a second Claude Camozzi and Pierre Leca 30 Codename: FAME2 Fabienne Lemarchand 32 Ter@tec : 2 years old and a brilliant future 33 APPLICATION Stars 34 To the origin of galaxies, in silico p. 8 Allan Sacha Brun 36 “Modelling turbulence on the surface of the sun” Earth Jean Pailleux: 37 “The better use of real data” 38 Tomorrow's climate today 39 Ten obstacles to overcome Life 40 Proteins span the web Olivier Gascuel 41 “At the heart of evolution” p. 16 Cryptanalysis Antoine Joux: 43 “Cryptanalysis can only progress” PHOTO DE COUVERTURE : CYRILLE DUPONT/CEA Summary Materials 44 The microelectronics industry changes scale 45 Making virtual materials 46 Irradiated steel aging in silico Michel Gutmann: 47 “Models that guarantee the safety of reactors” Safety 48 Well-calculated collisions 49 Digital disasters… to avoid the real thing p. 20 Aeronautics Jean-Jacques Thibert: 50 “The difficulty of modelling turbulence” p. 26 51 Deep in the heart of jet engine Nuclear 52 Controled fusion: toward models in 5 dimensions Jean-Pierre Chièze: 53 “Fantastic methods in basic research” 54 A software platform for nuclear power plants 55 A pressing need for computing tools 55 Digital nuclear reactors Defense Daniel Verwaerde: p. 34 56 “Perpetuating Frances nuclear dissuasion tests” Managing risk 58 From computer viruses to flu viruses Jean-Yves Blanc: 59 “Going underground & knowing where to look” L’ACTUALITÉ DES SCIENCES Société d’Éditions Scientifi ques 1 year 11 issues + 4 focus issues, 72 Ð Contributors: Bernard Wouts, Publishing Director Price (International : please contact us Isabelle Bellin, Anne Debroise, Didier Gout, Benoît Stéphane Khémis, Switzerland: Edigroup, Case postale 393, Rittaud, Laure Schalchli, Marie-Laure Théodule, Head of the Editorial Committee 1225 Chêne Bourg. Pierre Vandeginste Belgium: Edigroup, Bastion Tower-Etage Other members of the editorial comity: Olivier Postel-Vinay, Hélène Bringer (Bull), Philippe Devins (HP), Marc p. 50 Management Advisor 20, place du Champ-de-Mars, 5. 1050 Dollfus (Intel), Martine Gigandet (CEA), Jean Gonnord (CEA), Thierry Priol (Inria) 4, rue du Texel 75014 Paris Bruxelles Canada: Express Mag, 8155, rue Larrey, Managing Director Frédéric Texier Tel.: 01 40 47 44 00 Anjou Production Christophe Perrusson (44 64) Fax: 01 40 47 44 02 Québec H1J 2L5. 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La Recherche Service Abonnement Thomas Laurens [Legal deposit 2nd quarter 2006] B 604, 60732 Sainte-Geneviève Cedex Graphic Design Michel Donnadieu © 2006 Société d’éditions scientifi ques Price (France): 1 year 11 issues, 52.60 Ð; Illustrations Yannick Bricon ISSN 0029-56671 CHALLENGES BACK TO BASICS Nine questions about numerical Jean-Michel Ghidaglia is a professor at École Normale Supérieure It saves time and a lot of money Is it just calculation? No! Because we can’t use numbers in simulations wi- de Cachan and especially for automobile and ae- scientific director thout first having a mathematical model. So modelling of La Recherche. roplane manufacturers. It allows and simulation always go hand in hand. Imagine, for example, that we want to simulate the movement of the Benoît Rittaud meteorologists to predict what Planets around the Sun. First, we need to work out a model of the phenomenon, that is, determine the basic is a lecturer the weather will be like in five at Université parameters that describe it in both a simple and realis- Paris-XIII. days’ time. The power of nume- tic way. The constraint of simplicity means that the Sun and each Planet are treated as finite points. The result rical simulation is increasing in is that, knowing the position and speed of each star, the This version has been entire movement can be characterised. To complete revised and corrected step with the power of computers the model, equations are written that quantitatively by the authors of the to become an indispensable tool describe the reciprocal attraction between the Planets original ‘Back to Basics’ and the Sun. Depending on the degree of refinement article on digital in research. desired for describing this phenomenon, solving it will simulation, be more or less complicated. If we hypothesise that the La Recherche, Planets’ masses are sufficiently low that we can ignore November 2004, p. 73. their reciprocal interactions (keeping only those which 6 LA RECHERCHE SPECIAL ISSUE CHALLENGES BACK TO BASICS simulation WHAT HAPPENS AT THE INTERFACE BETWEEN TWO DIFFERENT MEDIA WHEN A SHOCK WAVE SPREADS? A zone of mixing forms, the turbulence that appears and changes over time can be reproduced by computation using the Triclade code.