By increasing the energy efficiency of a supercomputer scientists can save huge amounts of money over the total lifecycle of the system. With ever-increasing core counts and increasingly large supercomputers, the drive for increased computational power comes at a cost.

In the last decade, scientists have made tremendous progress in understanding that groups of bacteria and viruses that naturally coexist throughout the human body play an important role in some vital functions like digestion, metabolism and even fighting off diseases. But understanding just how they do it remains a question.

An international joint research team led by NIMS succeeded in fabricating a neuromorphic network composed of numerous metallic nanowires. Using this network, the team was able to generate electrical characteristics similar to those associated with higher order brain functions unique to humans, such as memorization, learning, forgetting, becoming alert and returning to calm. The team then clarified the mechanisms that induced these electrical characteristics.

You are invited to submit papers, workshops, tutorials and more for the PEARC20 Conference that will be held in Portland, July 26–30, 2020. Presentations may address any topic related to advanced research computing, but topics consistent with one or more of the following four technical tracks are of particular interest: advanced research computing systems, application software and support, professional development and machine learning and artificial intelligence.

A computer chip processes and stores information using two different devices. If engineers could combine these devices into one or put them next to each other, then there would be more space on a chip, making it faster and more powerful.

A powerful new supercomputer arrived this week at Idaho National Laboratory’s Collaborative Computing Center. The machine has the power to run complex modeling and simulation applications, which are essential to developing next-generation nuclear technologies.

Like it or not, AI will soon infiltrate every aspect of our society from our refrigerators to autonomous cars and everything in between. Combined with data and data science, AI offers new, smart ways to solve existing problems and create fresh and exciting opportunities.

According to Hyperion Research, 2018 was a banner year for the high performance computing industry. And if the first half of 2019 is any indication, we may be seeing something close to a repeat performance this year. As Hyperion previously reported, $13.7 billion was spent on HPC servers in 2018, representing 15 percent year-over-year growth and a new high water mark. Server revenue in 2019 is already at $6.7 billion for the first half of year, a period that typically has less spending than the final two quarters. If that pattern holds true, the market would break $14 billion or possibly even $15 billion by the end of the year.

Over the past few years, big data has become a significant part of our lives. Its influence is continually rising. Big data plays a role in nearly everything we do, from our navigation systems, to our Netflix recommendations, to our healthcare systems. At this point, you could probably pick any aspect of your life and find a way that big data has influenced it. For example, think about higher education. Big data is playing a much bigger role in our choices of colleges and our experiences while there than we probably even realize. Universities are using big data in all sorts of interesting ways that benefit both their profit margins and the students attending the school.

“High-performance computing” may sound niche, but HPC (as insiders call it) influences basically everything. Even soda cans. Yes, cans are low-tech, but they’re high stakes. People use them constantly — globally, we use about 6,700 per second — which means the slightest design flaw wastes tons of aluminum and millions of dollars.

If you wanted to deliver a package across the street, you could program a powerful computer to do it, equipped with sensors and hardware capable of running multiple differential equations to track the movement and speed of each car. But a young child would be capable of doing the same task with little effort, says Alex Demkov, professor of Physics at The University of Texas at Austin.

Last fall, Google unveiled a breakthrough artificial intelligence technology called BERT that changed the way scientists build systems that learn how people write and talk.

In the race to create a quantum computer that can outperform a classical one, a method using particles of light (photons) has taken a promising step forward. Jian-Wei Pan and Chao-Yang Lu, both at the University of Science and Technology of China, and their colleagues improved a quantum computing technique called boson sampling to achieve a record 14 detected photons in its final results.

MIT researchers have invented a way to efficiently optimize the control and design of soft robots for target tasks, which has traditionally been a monumental undertaking in computation. Soft robots have springy, flexible, stretchy bodies that can essentially move an infinite number of ways at any given moment.

When it came to figuring out which computer scientist should help linguists decipher inscrutable alien texts, it was Stephen Wolfram who got the call. Sure, these extraterrestrials may only have existed in the sci-fi movie Arrival, but if ET ever does drop out of orbit, Wolfram might well still be on the short list of people to contact.

Time is money and, unfortunately for companies, hiring new employees takes significant time—more than a month on average, research shows. Hiring decisions are also rife with human bias, leading some organizations to hand off at least part of their employee searches to outside tech companies who screen applicants with machine learning algorithms.

Could the same computer algorithms that teach autonomous cars to drive safely help identify nearby asteroids or discover life in the universe? NASA scientists are trying to figure that out by partnering with pioneers in artificial intelligence (AI)—companies such as Intel, IBM and Google—to apply advanced computer algorithms to problems in space science.

A radical transformation in higher education is happening in Rockville that is reverberating to Annapolis, within nine public universities in the state and even nationally. And what’s happening locally on a multi-university, regional campus is a model for the nation.

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Monero -- the names of digital-based 'cryptocurrencies' are being heard more and more frequently. But despite having no physical representation, could these new methods of exchange actually be negatively impacting our planet? It's a question being asked by researchers at The University of New Mexico, who are investigating the environmental impacts of mining cryptocurrencies.

A better school schedule means balancing the needs of students, teachers, and other faculty members to increase efficacy across the board while providing crucial access to the right classes at the right time for the student populace.

In 1999, at the height of the dot-com revolution, I was the only woman to graduate from Harvey Mudd College with a degree in computer science. The secret to my success? Supportive professors and classmates, sure — but also a willful obliviousness to my difference.

Scientists for years have speculated about the powerful hurricane winds that blast just above the surface of the ocean near the eyewall of the storm. These winds, often the most intense in the storm, play a critical role in lifting energy and moisture from the warm ocean waters into the atmosphere, influencing the intensity and path of the hurricane. But they are too dangerous for research aircraft to fly through.

Students have always arrived at institutions of higher education filled with hopes and expectations. For today’s students, however, attaining a traditional degree is only one possible goal among many, and what constitutes success for them is equally varied.

Finding the ‘sweet spot’ of data needs and consumption is critical to a business. Without enough, the business model under performs. Too much and you run the risk of compromised security and protection. Measuring what data intake is needed – like a balanced diet – is key to optimum performance and output. A healthy diet of data will set a company on the road to maximum results without drifting into red areas either side.

We are not shy of playing guessing games here at The Next Platform, as you all well know. And Intel and Cray have left us with a few big ones with regard to its future “Aurora A21” exascale system that Intel is the prime contractor for and Cray is the manufacturing subcontractor for at Argonne National Laboratory. But some of the pieces of the puzzle are falling into place at the SC19 supercomputer conference in Denver.