IBM's world-class Summit supercomputer gooses speed with AI abilities

jegaboy

Making a world-class supercomputer with thousands of processors and the power appetite of a small town isn't as easy as it used to be.[br][br]But IBM's latest machine, called [a href="https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/olcf-resources/compute-systems/summit/"]Summit[/a], is a big step forward for those who need gargantuan computing power. Unveiled Friday at [a href="https://www.ornl.gov/"]Oak Ridge National Laboratory[/a] in Tennessee, it's a top contender for fastest of the fast, a crown that will be bestowed later this month by organizers of the [a href="https://www.top500.org/"]Top500 supercomputer list[/a]. For now, though, Big Blue stops a little short of calling it the world's fastest machine by that measurement.[br][br]Instead, Summit is "the most powerful, smartest supercomputer in the world," said Dave Turek, vice president of high-performance computing and cognitive systems at IBM. It'll crunch through something like 200 quadrillion mathematical calculations each second, a speed called 200 petaflops. That's about 200 million times faster than a laptop today.[br][br]The system and its twin at [a href="https://www.llnl.gov/"]Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory[/a] in California were funded in 2014 as part of a [a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/ibm-nvidia-land-325-million-supercomputer-deal/"]$325 million Department of Energy program called Coral[/a], but [a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-shares-updates-on-does-summit-supercomputer/"]Summit took years to develop[/a]. Goosing supercomputer speeds has been tough this decade as increases in processor speed began tailing off.[br][br]It's got a high price tag, but Summit shows what it takes to stay at the cutting edge of computing. The [a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/china-surpasses-us-in-supercomputer-usage-on-top-500-list/"]US lags China today[/a] for both the top supercomputer and the most total supercomputer capacity on the Top500 list, but Summit will deliver a speed boost with new processor designs, fast storage and internal communications, and a design that can use artificial intelligence methods to zero in on the right computing calculations to be running in the first place.[br][br]Supercomputing meets AI[br][br]"The marketplace is beginning to recognize that AI and high-performance computing are not separate domains but things that need be viewed as integrated," Turek said. "The incorporation of machine learning dramatically reduces the amount of simulation that needs to be done to get to optimal results."[br][br]What's Summit good for? At Oak Ridge, it'll be scientific research into subjects like designing chemical formula, exploring new materials, studying links between cancer and genes on a very large scale, investigating fusion energy, researching the universe through astrophysics and simulating the earth's changing climate.[br][br]Lawrence Livermore, a lab funded chiefly by DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration, has a more militaristic mission, including stockpiling stewardship research to ensure nuclear weapons reliability.[br][br]

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