The Fun Work of Technology Crystal Ball Gazing at SC16

by John Russell,  HPC Wire

Next week’s International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage and Analysis (SC16) in Salt Lake City, UT, will feature the first International Workshop on Post-Moore Era Supercomputing (PMES).

Another panel, led by Jeffrey Vetter, director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Future Technology Group and recipient of the 2010 ACM Gordon Bell Prize, will further explore the ideas generated at that workshop. Vetter says the panel will talk about “potential opportunities and challenges for post-Moore technologies from the perspective of the (high-performance computing) community.” He notes the papers highlighted at the workshop will focus on subjects ranging from neuromorphic computing to quantum computing to performance modeling for PMES systems.

Vetter cites neuromorphic computers as systems that can possess outstanding performance and energy efficiency. Meanwhile, scalable quantum computing still remains an open research question that demands mission-critical applications and programming models. Vetter predicts complementary metal-oxide semiconductor devices will not become obsolete, “until unseated by some disruptive technology.” He also says an important shift in memory systems to non-volatile memory is occurring, partly due to cost and energy efficiency concerns. Vetter cites programming systems and application performance portability as the most vital challenges for the HPC community.  Read the interview.