RadioFreeHPC: Recent Episodes
RadioFreeHPC.com
Podcast for fans of supercomputing and other tech topics. Since 2012. Stay "tuned"! https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/radio-free-hpc-podcast/id557931368 http://RadioFreeHPC.com
After 193 months off the air, Radio Free HPC is back. Dan, Shahin, and Henry return with the same arguments, the same opinions, and a slightly more irregular schedule. Also: hospital stays, liquid cooling, and why AI is just HPC in a hoodie. 193 months later (or 1,351 days, depending on how you count), Radio…
We’ve got the whole crew here as we look at the upcoming SC22 event. How many will be there? What will be happening? We answer only some of these questions. *Download the MP3 * Follow us on Twitter * Subscribe on Spotify * Subscribe on Google Play * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed * eMail usClick the icon below to listen.
Dan rides alone on this one as he interviews the HPC folks from Dow who are behind their move to cloud bursting. Interesting and informative. *Download the MP3 * Follow us on Twitter * Subscribe on Spotify * Subscribe on Google Play * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed * eMail usClick the icon below to listen.
We introduce new co-host Ben Carr and talk some NIST and Intel trevails. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3 * Follow us on Twitter * Subscribe on Spotify * Subscribe on Google Play * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed * eMail us
We introduce new co-host Ben Carr and talk some NIST and Intel trevails. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3 * Follow us on Twitter * Subscribe on Spotify * Subscribe on Google Play * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed * eMail us
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, Dan and Jessi talk GTC along with special guest Todd Weiss. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3 * Follow us on Twitter * Subscribe on Spotify * Subscribe on Google Play * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed * eMail us
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, the crew round up the most intriguing batch of recent HPC topics including Graphcore, HPC efforts to better understand melting diamonds and Jazz, as well as quantum startup Alice&Bob. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3 * Follow us on Twitter * Subscribe on Spotify * Subscribe on Google Play … Read More »Jazz, Melting Diamonds, and Schrödinger’s Cat
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, the crew talk Intel’s Ponte Vecchio. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3 * Follow us on Twitter * Subscribe on Spotify * Subscribe on Google Play * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed * eMail us
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, Dan and Jessi are joined by Trish Damkroger and Brent Gorda to talk HPC topics, thoughts, and intriguing trends. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3 * Follow us on Twitter * Subscribe on Spotify * Subscribe on Google Play * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed * eMail us
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, the crew discusses Intel’s investment into RISC-V, the 2022 Winter Classic student cluster competition, and quantum computing in Canada. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3 * Follow us on Twitter * Subscribe on Spotify * Subscribe on Google Play * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed * eMail us
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, the crew talks Meta’s new AI supercomputer, NVIDIA abandoning ARM, and our latest competition winners. RadioFreeHPC is brought to you by the Surfs Up Hippie and Geriatric Dog Sanctuary of Oceanside, California. Providing a home to both wayward humans and elderly canines since 1972. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download… Read More »NVIDIA Slinks Away, Meta Bulks Up, And We Zap Bugs
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, the crew discuss NVIDIA buying Bright Computing and NOAA’s 100x HPC plan. RadioFreeHPC is produced by our Croatian audio man (no really, he’s actually in Croatia) and distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3 * Follow us on Twitter * Subscribe on Spotify * Subscribe on Google Play * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS… Read More »NVIDIA’s Future Looks… Bright
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, the crew discuss Frontier delays and gifts for each other should they make Santa’s nice or naughty list. RadioFreeHPC is brought to you by weird things out of Florida. On the cutting-edge of UFOs, backyard gators, and headlines you can’t even believe. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3… Read More »2021 Holiday Episode
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, the crew talk the FTC suing NVIDIA and a webinar on Ayar Lab’s optical I/O. The webinar can be viewed at https://buff.ly/3dU8gOp. (Registration required, but it’s worth it.) RadioFreeHPC is produced by the 1980s LARP-ing Society, replacing medieval LARP-ing with nostalgic reenactments of 80s culture. Leg warmers optional. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in… Read More »FTC Blues and Optical I/O
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, a new voice hits the waves as Dan and Jessi talk with Ryan Quick about hyperscale, blockchain, and smattering of good (dare we say… quick…) topics. RadioFreeHPC is produced by the MPI-MA (Maximum Precision In Martial Arts) Dojo of Pain offering mixed martial art and numerical analysis at discount prices.… Read More »Hyperscale with Ryan Quick
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, the crew completes an SC roundup discussing supply chain issues, composable computing, and Oracle’s cloud service. RadioFreeHPC is brought to you by Prairie Gulch Old Western Reenactment Club. Join them in their new Oregon Trail reenactment. Apply online. RadioFreeHPC is distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3 * Follow us… Read More »But Is It Composable? (SC Roundup)
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, the crew discusses the new Top500 list, Atos’ Quantum Learning Machine, and a few SC tidbits. RadioFreeHPC is produced by the greater Columbus Dungeons and Dragons team, led by Kevin, Lord High Dungeon Master and Slayer of the Wasteland. Meeting Tuesday and Thursday afternoons in Kevin’s Mom’s basement. Cookies and… Read More »Top500, Quantum, And SC
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, Dan, Jessi, and Shahin talk AMD’s big swing at NVIDIA and the concept of Metaverse. RadioFreeHPC is produced by a group of concerned helicopter mothers who don’t understand why they can’t have lunch with their adult kids in the clean room, and distributed in partnership with HPCwire. Download the MP3 … Read More »Cue The Processor Wars
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, the crew talks the biggest news on the mind – China hitting exascale. RadioFreeHPC was produced by a grant from Neo-Luddite, a group dedicated to the belief that the tech invented during their active career represents the peak of innovation and that anything that comes after is at best derivative… Read More »China Hits Exascale
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, a candid and unfiltered interview with Bronis de Supinski, General Chair of SC21. The challenges of St. Louis… with a few tangents along the way. RadioFreeHPC is produced by oldster tech fogies who believe that the good old days of tailor-made custom supercomputers was the pinnacle of tech achievement. Their motto?… Read More »Bronis de Supinski on SC21
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, Jessi vanishes from recording due to DSL issues, Addison Snell of Intersect360 joins to add to the scintillation, and a host of issues are discussed from new scalability to cluster competitions to voice recognition. RadioFreeHPC is a production of millennial tech hipsters who believe that any and all HPC workloads can… Read More »Musical Chairs
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, the crew talk all things exascale, Exascale Day, and most importantly, Exascale Day traditions. RadioFreeHPC is proudly brought to you by Cub Scout Troop #149 and Girl Scout Troop #731 of Dubuque, IA, earning communication merit badges for the effort, and distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3 * Follow us… Read More »Happy Exascale Day!
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, Dan, Henry, and Shahin discuss the take off of RISC-V and Atos’ acquisition of Nimbix. Big moves happening on both accounts… RadioFreeHPC is brought to you by the new docu series “The Never-Ending Story” which documents a meeting between life long HPC colleagues as they talk about old technology that… Read More »RISC-V Momentum & Atos’ March To The US
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, Henry and Shahin debate the end of open-source due to software vulnerabilities in a format-breaking episode. The honorable Dan Olds acts as moderator. RadioFreeHPC is brought to you by the new movie “Unbelievable” where a HPC storage specialist catches the attention, and then the heart, of a passionate French fashion… Read More »Debate: The End of Open Source
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, Dan, Henry, and Shahin talk about the death of a Jedi, more specifically the cancellation of the Pentagon JEDI contract. Listen in for the details, as well as a full breakdown on multivendor competition and the complexity behind these agreements. RadioFreeHPC is produced by the computer science department at Faber College,… Read More »Fall of the JEDI
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, a full discussion on quantum computing, its applications, and what the world might look like in the quantum age. RadioFreeHPC is made possible by a grant from the Barnum & Baily Foundation for Good Scientific Understand and Stuff and distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3 * Follow us… Read More »World of Quantum
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC the entire crew is back to talk the UK Met Office buying 1.2 billion pounds worth of Azure credits, responsibility when dealing with ransomware, and Elon Musk. RadioFreeHPC is produced by a pack of mildly rabid dogs who have gained the ability to manipulate technology for their own mad agenda.… Read More »The Met Office
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC Henry and Dan speculate that Shahin has been kidnapped by aliens while Jessi does battle with the Midwest heat. Absent co-hosts aside, Henry and Dan give an all-inclusive look at the International Student Cluster Competition, from years prior to this year’s throw-down. RadioFreeHPC is produced through a generous grant from… Read More »Your Comprehensive Lead Up To ISC
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC Henry and Dan have a relaxed, non-argumentative session (possibly due to Shahin and Jessi’s absences). The two talk ransomware, Henry’s ongoing battle with the bots, and practice tips for where to build your telescope’s data center. RadioFreeHPC is produced by tthe HPC division of Feldmen’s Heating and Air Conditioning, keeping… Read More »Short: RFHPC, Stress Free
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC the crew discusses NVIDIA’s expansion to a full-fledged server vendor, the who’s and how’s of this move, and the implications of the behemoth company’s announcement. RadioFreeHPC is produced by the Sun Microsystems Reunification Fund and distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3 * Follow us on Twitter * Subscribe on… Read More »NVIDIA’s Next Move
In this episode of RadioFreeHPC, a breakdown of Henry’s battle with the bots, Intel’s 7nm, and the potentially impossible task of modeling the Earth. RadioFreeHPC is produced by a team of gnomes hiding in a server rack and distributed in partnership with HPCwire. *Download the MP3 * Follow us on Twitter * Subscribe on Spotify * Subscribe… Read More »Henry Newman vs. the World
This is a breaking news edition of Radio Free HPC, so you should play some dramatic and exciting music while you listen to this episode. Wait, don’t do that, we want you to actually hear the episode. So just hum something exciting while you listen. In this special episode, we break down AMD’s new Epyc… Read More »Milan, Milan, Milan
Radio Free HPC: Cerebras, EPCC and Chippewa Falls Remodel We have a full crew for this wide-ranging episode of RFHPC. We start with a discussion of the new Cerebras and HPE based supercomputer slated for the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Center in, well, Edinburgh. We talk some feeds and speeds for the new boxes, particularly about… Read More »Radio Free HPC: Cerebras, EPCC and Chippewa Falls Remodel
Big changes at Intel: Gelsinger Takes the Helm Our main topic today is Intel, with the bulk of the discussion surrounding the return of Pat Gelsinger as Intel’s new CEO. Pat was a 30 year veteran of Intel before he let to pursue other, well, pursuits – most notably as CEO of VMware. While at… Read More »Big Changes at Intel: Gelsinger Takes the Helm
Our main topic for this episode is the SolarWinds hack. This is the worst digital hacking incident to date and will have repercussions for many years. As many as 18,000 SolarWinds customers may have downloaded the hacked update and opened themselves up to digital mayhem and thievery. This includes many government accounts, some of the… Read More »Digital D-Day: SolarWinds Hack
After a late fall hiatus, Radio Free HPC is back, baby. This is our holiday episode and we start by pledging to be 29% more scintillating in the new year, which is a significant bonus for listeners if we can hit that mark. The theme of the show is HPC: High Performance Christmas. We left… Read More »We’re Back! High Performance Christmas Episode
RISC-V Deep Dive, CTO Interview In this special edition of Radio Free HPC, we interview Mark Himelstein, RISC-V International Chief Technical Officer. In the discussion, we look at RISC-V from all angles, discussing how the opensource ISA is being used today and how it might be used tomorrow. And there’s a lot to consider.… Read More »RISC-V Deep Dive, CTO Interview
We have our full staff for this show – first time in a long time. We start out with introductions….Henry still lives in a survivalist compound in Las Cruces, NM, Jessi is still on crutches, and Shahin is still living in the smokey Silicon Valley. Jumping right into our topic: DOD is getting two new,… Read More »Liqid Gets Hot, NSF Billion for AI
We’re finally starting to cut into our product backlog and, as a first, we’re presenting our special road trip double episode where Jessi and Dan traveled to the House of Henry, buried deeply in Las Cruces, New Mexico. We visit his rammed earth compound and recorded two RFHPC episodes there – and one of them… Read More »Special Fun-tastic Double Episode
We start out with our personal pledge that all of our content is new and not pre-recorded. That’s our gift to you – no recycled, reused or Amazon Renewed content. Jumping into our first topic, Risc-V IP and silicon purveyor SiFive earned a $61 million investment from a group of high-end investors including SK Hynix,… Read More »SiFive’s Big Score, Will Nvidia Buy Arm?
Summer inventory clearance days for Radio Free HPC! We’re blasting through our processing backlog and getting the episodes out as fast as possible (but no faster). In this episode, we talk about the spate of MLperf benchmarks and how AMD hit it out of the park on their most recent earnings. We start the episode… Read More »MLperf Wars & AMD’s Gawdy Numbers
The show starts on a high note, with Henry’s audio being amazingly echo free. Usually we hear a lot of echo as Henry talks, which is due to the rammed earth walls of his new abode, plus the fact that there isn’t any carpeting or anything else to absorb his nasal tones. But somehow Henry… Read More »Is Amazon’s Graviton2 Ready for Prime (Time)?
ISC20 Smashing Online Success The RadioFreeHPC team looks back at the success that ISC20 was and discusses what attending an online-only conference was like. Big kudos and thanks to the ISC team who pulled off one grand challenge of re-planning and did it so well! Shahin offers his reflections on scheduling an online conference on… Read More »ISC, Student Cluster Competition Recap
Intel Optane Memory Nothing says HPC like having the performance cake and eating it too. In this episode, we drill down on what Intel is doing with their cool Optane tech, shooting for speeds that remind you of memory, sizes that look like storage, and costs that make it look like a deal, with real… Read More »The Persistence of Memory
VMware’s Bitfusion and Dell We start with team introductions, as usual, but drop a bombshell on listeners: we’re going to be missing Jessi for the next couple of months as she goes off to Marine Officers Candidate School – or as she calls it “screamy summer camp.” It’s sort of like an all-inclusive Sandals Resort.… Read More »Is it Time for Virtual GPUs?
18th Listener Awards! Run-of-the-mill start as we introduce the team. Henry has quite a bit of echo since he’s now firmly ensconced in his rammed earth survival compound. Big news this week! We finally received our 18th email in our first ever RadioFreeHPC email-to-win contest. First, let’s see what they win… The first item in… Read More »NSF, QIS Funding, But First…
Breaking News Edition We have a new #1 on the TOP500 list of most powerful supercomputers! Big gets bigger by a factor of 2.8x as Fujitsu’s “Supercomputer Fugaku” tops the list at 415 PFlops. There are also an additional three new entries in the top ten. We break down the top of the list in… Read More »New Top on the TOP500 – 415 PF!
Our Guest Today is… In this extraordinary episode of Radio Free HPC, the crew interviews the industry icon that is @HPC_Guru. This is the first time that anyone has been granted an interview with him and we’re proud to have been chosen for this honor. We posed an even dozen questions and received very thoughtful… Read More »@HPC_Guru Speaketh! Kind of.
New Book Makes Sense of Edge Computing After our typical inane opening, which includes an update on Henry’s Las Cruces bunker with 21” rammed earth walls, we get quickly down to business and begin our interview with very special guest, Dr. Cody Bumgardner, Assistant Professor of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at the University of Kentucky.… Read More »HPC on the Edge
NOTE: The publication of this episode was delayed due to the untimely passing of our partner and pal Rich Brueckner. So what we’re announcing as “breaking news” isn’t so fresh today, but our takes on what NVIDIA’s new A100 processor brings to the table are still valid. Breaking News! This special edition of RadioFreeHPC… Read More »A is for Ampere, Nvidia A100’s Public Debut
by Dan Olds This is a tough blog to write for this RadioFreeHPC episode. This is the episode where we say a final goodbye to our co-founder and comrade in arms Rich Brueckner. Rich passed away suddenly last week leaving us shocked and shaken. The whole genesis of RFHPC came out of Rich and I… Read More »Tribute to Rich Brueckner, 1962-2020
We start off with an update from our crew. Jessie is at Purdue putting her belongings into storage in order to clear out her current abode. Shahin is doing fine, all quarantined up down in Silicon Valley. Henry has big news: he’s completed his north-south journey and is now staying in a hotel very close… Read More »Debate This: Server Sales Up 30% in Q1, Says Analyst Firm
The show starts with Dan, Jessi and Shahin in attendance. Henry is traveling from his old home base in Minnesota to his new command bunker in lovely Las Cruces, NM. Last we heard he was in Kansas City and making good time. We’re not sure how long we’re going to have to do without him… Read More »ColdQuanta Serves Up Some Bose-Einstein Condensate
A typical show opening, but we’re missing Henry – he was away packing for his big move from his long-time home base in Minnesota to his new bunker in Las Cruces. He’s packing up all of his memorabilia, like his first punch card sets, his core memory collection and his home terminal, lovingly wrapping them… Read More »What Good Did It Do? Quite a Lot, and Quite the Story
Dan starts this episode with, as usual, an introduction of the cast. Henry reports that he’s only three weeks away from his epic move from Minnesota to Los Cruces, New Mexico. Trapping Those Unruly Ions We quickly move to our main topic: Honeywell’s Trapped Ion Quantum computing initiative. Shahin gives us a good overview of… Read More »Honeywell Traps, Zaps Ions for Science
RadioFreeHPC Studios Presents Slightly Inaccurate History of Great Leaps in Computing (SIHOGLIC) Edition One In this groundbreaking production, RadioFreeHPC Studios reenacts dramatic moments in the life of computing genius Charles Babbage. We breath life into his early days, his many battles and his Babbage-worthy achievements. We can honestly say, without hyperbole, that this is the… Read More »SIHOGLIC: The Life & Times of Charles Babbage
We fire up the show with introductions and a little snippiness on Dan’s part. Henry reports that the weather in Minnesota is nearly human. AI in Science Jumping into our main topic, Shahin introduces an article from HPCwire interviewing Argonne’s Associate Laboratory Director Rick Stevens about how the DOE will be using AI in science.… Read More »AI in Science. When is it real?
The conversation today begins with discussing how long it will take until Henry moves into his rammed earth Los Cruces bunker. For those of you keeping track at home, the correct answer was 41 days at the time of taping, which, by the time the podcast is out will probably be “a couple of weeks… Read More »Supercomputers Battle Corona
Supercomputer Leaps to New Peaks At the top of the show we discuss whether Indiana (where Jessi is located at Purdue) is in the heartland or not. We all agree that it is and, yes, Jessi sees Larry Bird all the time. Getting into the heart of the episode, Dan talks about the briefing he… Read More »Climbing El Capitan? Details Detailed!
For RadioFreeHPC aficionados, it’s a typical opening for this episode. Henry is counting down the days until he moves to sunny Los Cruces and we have a lull in the conversation right after the introductions. We recover quickly and move onto the main course of today’s show: Intel’s OneAPI project The OneAPI project is a… Read More »One Big Debate over OneAPI
This week we have Dan, Jessi, and Shahin on the call. Henry is off in Los Cruces overseeing construction of what can only be called a bunker. Why? Its main feature is 21-inch rammed earth walls, guaranteed to withstand withering heat waves, cold snaps, and probably any high caliber round. We speculate on the exact… Read More »Let’s Learn Deeply about Extreme Weather
At the top of this episode, Henry notes that the temperature in his city will be touching -15F, which is plenty cold. However, it’s very good overclocking weather as Dan and Shahin point out. Not quite quantum weather, unfortunately. Cray Slingshot Interconnect We quickly get to the main topic of the day, an examination of… Read More »Slingshotting to Exascale, It’s Hot!
The show starts with our traditional lull, which always follows our initial introductions – when no one knows who should speak first, or prefer not to. However, we quickly regain our footing and get to the major topic of the day: the coronavirus or COVID-19 as the doctors have dubbed it. Shahin started out the… Read More »Coronavirus
And High Powered Radio Towers, too The show starts out in the usual way with check ups on the health and happiness of our hosts. Jessi finished a 50-mile race over the weekend, which is admirable, particularly when you consider she was on foot. With a reasonable decent segue, Dan moves the conversation to the… Read More »Faster Weather, Pizza, Tires
Surprise! It’s Snowing in Minnesota The show starts on a combative note with Henry refusing to discuss how much snow is arrayed around his house. Dan shares his dream running a snowblower and Henry offers up his house but doesn’t offer airfare, which, assumedly, would be a deal breaker for the ever-cheap Dan Olds. ZFS… Read More »ZFS, AI for System Design, Power in GCE
Shiny Crystal Ball It’s our first episode of 2020, yay! The first that was recorded in 2020 anyway. It’s a predictable 20/20 joke (more of a meh comment really) but the topic today is… PREDICTIONS. More specifically, it’s our predictions of what’s going to happen in the next year. We may not always be correct,… Read More »2020 Predictions, Get it?!
This episode was recorded back in 2019 but then the holiday episode had to go out during holidays and cut in line, messing up the cogs of the well-oiled machine that is the RFHPC production process. Regardless, the episode starts out with Henry being cranky. It also ends with Henry being cranky. But between those… Read More »Quantum, Quantum, Quantum
It’s become a tradition at RadioFreeHPC to celebrate the holidays with a video of the holiday episode. The new logo launches the video: celebrating a truly family style dinner and dreaming big (maybe too creatively, however) as the team exchanges “if-only” gifts! Here’s the Director’s Cut version of the video: And the edited audio-only,… Read More »2019 Holiday Episode (video): Family Dinner at RFHPC
SA Students Get Ready to take ISC by Storm Probably 15% more scintillating than usual, Dan promises as he calls this episode “fantastic”! Now a 5-day conference with two days of workshops as book-ends, multiple tracks and many speakers, and yes, a very exciting Student Cluster Competition, the CHPC National Conference has developed into a… Read More »South Africa CHPC National Conference
SC19 Postview Our show today is all about what we saw at the “State Fair for Nerds” that is SC19. Where there weren’t any livestock shows or supercomputers carved out of butter, there was a lot to see and hear. Shahin talks about the European Processor Initiative and conversations that he had with folks from… Read More »SC19: Our Visit to the State Fair
SC19 Student Cluster Round Up The show starts in the usual way, with Henry complaining about snow and us laughing at him. Our special guest, student clusterer extraordinaire Jessi Lanum, complains about recording again with Henry in a definite shot across his bow, to everyone’s amusement. The group discusses their annual SC19 dinner and the… Read More »SC19 Student Cluster Competition – Recap
Live from SC19 In this Breaking News edition of RadioFreeHPC, we look over the newly released TOP500 list in all its glory. We talk about the changes in this version of the list (100 new systems, but none in the top 24), how the major countries stack up against each other, and vendor system share.… Read More »New TOP500 List: Spot The Difference
Blood Sweat Glory, But No Tears “This is a groundbreaking episode of RadioFreeHPC….groundbreaking, I tell you! We have a very special guest, our first post-millennial commentator, Jessi Lanum who is a Student Cluster Competition veteran and is on the show to give us an insider peek at what it’s like to compete for cluster competition… Read More »SC19 Student Cluster Competition – Preview
You never write, you never call, you never send flowers “just because.” But that’s ok, we welcome you back to another scintillating episode of Radio Free HPC anyway. Henry is traveling on yet another business trip, lodged in the Washington, DC area, and not even in his favorite hotel chain. But his reputation as a… Read More »Truth, Trust, and Deepfakes
What’s All Happening at SC19 in Denver? Supercomputing ’19 is coming to Denver this year and who better than Rich Brueckner to give us a sneak peak. Super excited to have Rich and his signature laugh on this show again. In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team reviews the full list of ancillary events… Read More »Preview of Supercomputing ’19 – Denver
RadioFreeHPC Celebrates a Number in its Prime Welcome to a historic milestone: Our 251st Radio Free HPC episode! We’re celebrating 251 rather than 250 for a couple of reasons. First, everyone celebrates round numbers and that’s boring. And 251 is round enough for those who crave them. Second, 251 is a prime number and we… Read More »7 Years, 251 Episodes, 17 Listeners
How Many Episodes, Did You Say?! The show is geographically skewed today with all three hosts on the west coast. Henry is gracing Seattle with his presence, resulting in plunging coffee inventories and skyrocketing sushi prices. The first item of discussion is a problem in the scientific software world. There’s a bug in Python scripts… Read More »Fragile: Python, sudo, AI
RISC-V, Historic Passwords Revealed, End of the World We’re missing Henry S. Newman this week, who is down in Los Cruces inspecting and overseeing the construction of his new crib. Dan and Shahin discuss just how little they’d want to be the general contractor working to build Henry’s house. Henry would be deploying a set… Read More »RISC-V CEO Sees Bright Global Future for Open Source CPUs
Solving Exponential Problems in Polynomial Time Pretty much all of computing rests on the strong foundation of the Turing Machine, a general purpose formulation of computing which happens to be very sequential. It transfers that attribute to the Von Neumann architecture that manifests it and leads to the famous Von Neumann bottleneck. It would be… Read More »Turing Machine is Sequential, How About a Parallel Machine?
Quantum Supremacy Is and Is Not How quantum is that?! The RadioFreeHPC team discusses the Google/NASA paper, titled “Quantum Supremacy Using a Programmable Superconducting Processor”, that was published and then unpublished. But it’s the internet and everything is a “digital tattoo”, so there are copies out there (see below). The paper, right in its title, and… Read More »Quantum Supremacy? Yes and No!
@RadioFreeHPC Has Entered The Building First things first, you can call us @RadioFreeHPC now, thanks to our new Twitter account. We decided maybe this social media thing is not a fad after all. We are also pleased to inform you that our Twitter account is almost as heavily followed as the podcast itself. Thank you!… Read More »FinTech and HPC-AI
The Dos and Donts of RFP Benchmarks In today’s show we only have Dan and Henry on deck, Shahin is away at the “HPC and AI on Wall Street” event where he’ll be hosting various panel discussions. But Dan and Henry soldier on with a discussion based on a recent, and fascinating, presentation by Tricia… Read More »RFP Pro Tips
Yes, You Can Be More Efficient! Dan is back from way Down Under bearing intellectual gifts from the recent HPC-AI Advisory Council meeting in Perth. The RadioFree HPC team drills down on one interesting presentation focused on extracting more from power and cooling systems. Take a look at the video below and the rest of… Read More »Extreme Power and Cooling Efficiency
IO500 Benchmark Gets Traction Storage is complicated and benchmarking it has too many complexities for the traditional kernel-like or application-specific approaches. Thanks to a few experienced and tenacious researchers, and the community that supports them, the IO500 has managed to put a credible stake in the ground, and is getting traction, with 101 entries on… Read More »IO500 Team Visit
The 31st Hot Chips Conference Shahin reports from the Hot Chips conference with Henry and new guest Glenn Heinle, a veteran of AI, HPC, and Storage worlds and currently at Keeper Tech. The team discusses and debates the highlights of the conference and the hottest of the Hot Chips. Here are a few notes and… Read More »The Hottest of Hot Chips Conference
Cray Pulls an Exascale Hat Trick Guess who’s having a great year? Think Aurora, Frontier, and El Capitan. Cray has put some nice numbers on the accounts receivable ledger, and these are not ordinary numbers. The Exascale era is being defined substantially by the DOE Coral program and the commercial markets are watching as their… Read More »Coral is Cray for All
AMD Victory Lap AMD mojo continues as it pushes Moore’s law one more time. RadioFree looks into the AMD Rome CPU, a beast that brings back the glory days of Opteron and establishes itself as the chip to have, and establishes AMD as the company to beat. New Segment: Henry Newman’s Feel-Good Security Corner Henry… Read More »AMD Victory Lap
Spoofing the Spoofers Henry has a brilliant idea to weaponize his password generator against phishing attacks. Intel Drops Omni-Path Henry and Shahin take a close look at the history of High Performance Interconnects, recent news, and how the market is changing profoundly. The departure of Intel from this segment is good news for some, and… Read More »Who will benefit from Intel dropping Omni-Path?
The Veracity and Provenance of Surveillance Data Controversy strikes when news breaks that “Amazon’s home security company Ring has enlisted local police departments around the country to advertise its surveillance cameras in exchange for free Ring products and a “portal” that allows police to request footage from these cameras, a secret agreement obtained by Motherboard… Read More »Is Our Future Liquid Cooled? Also: Provenance of Surveillance Data!
Is cloud too expensive for HPC? Enquiring minds want to know, as does the HPC community whose single-minded obsession with maximum price-performance is notorious and legendary. The Radio Free team looks at actual cloud pricing based on available data and Dan’s research which fuel a hearty discussion. They look at configurations, compare prices, talk about… Read More »Is Cloud Too Expensive for HPC?
“Quantum applications are always and only hybrid” is the quote that Shahin wants you to remember as he gives an update on recent news in Quantum Computing, and especially how to program them. If you’re always going to have to mix classical code with quantum code then you need an environment that is built for… Read More »Quantum Apps Are Hybrid
HPC Market Eyes $44B New report from Hyperion Research has the HPC+AI market growing to $44B, with a B, in 5 years. The industry is hitting on all cylinders, benefiting from The ExaScale race, AI coming to the enterprise only to find that it needs, or really is, HPC, depending on your point of view,… Read More »HPC Market Eyes $44B in 5 Years
ExaScale is a 4-way Competition In this post-ISC show, the RadioFree team discusses Magical cooling technology from Europe. Dan goes over magic beads that draw heat away and can carry-on doing it pretty much forever in a technology from the venerable Fraunhofer Institute and showcased by Lenovo. How pursuit of ExaScale computing is turning into… Read More »ExaScale is a 4-way Competition
Why did HPE buy Cray? The RFHPC team tackles the HPE-Cray acquisition as it reviews the companies’ recent moves and strengths and market conditions in the context of: the 5-tier data center application architecture: Embedded, Mobile, Desktop, On-premises, Off-premises the emergence of AI as a must-do enterprise app, and increasing commonality between supercomputers and enterprise… Read More »Why did HPE buy Cray?
Quantum Computing and HPC Another scintillating and insightful episode of RFHPC is about Quantum Computing and HPC and how the two spaces are evolving and cooperating. We welcome a a distinguished guest with a most suitable background to talk to us about HPC and Quantum Computing. Mike Booth, who’s been in supercomputing since 1979 including… Read More »Quantum Computing and HPC
The new TOP500 list of most powerful supercomputers is out and we do our usual quick analysis. Not much changed in the TOP10 but a lot is changing further down the list. Here is a quick take: There are 65 new entries in 2019. US science is receiving support via DOE sites and academic sites like TACC.… Read More »TOP500 Jun2019, Facebook Coin
What are we going to do with 40+ different AI chips? This week, the team looks at AI chips again, this time motivated by an article in EE Times about once such chip, Graphcore, and touts it as “the most complex processor” ever at some 20 billion transistors. The VC-backed company out of Bristol, UK is… Read More »Forty+ different AI chips
Results of the Asian Student Cluster Competition In this episode, Dan has just come back from China and reviews the results of the Asian Student Cluster Competition and HPC workshop. For the first time, a non-mainland-Chinese team wins the top spot. Taiwan takes the gold in part by their stellar performance in HPCG benchmark where… Read More »Amdahl's Law and GPUs, Asian Student Cluster Competition
Asian Student Cluster Competition The ever-popular “calendar segment” is back (yes, that is us being sarcastic) as Dan describes his upcoming trip to Dalian, China for the Asian Student Cluster competition. 20 teams are expected to compete, mostly from mainland China, but also from Europe, South America and other parts of Asia. All of them… Read More »In-Memory, Caching, Persistence
Here’s this week’s synopsis. Black Holes Visualized The news of the cool visualization of an actual black hole leads to interesting issues in HPC land. Shahin is at pains to give credit where it is due while considering it as an achievement in data visualization not unlike many others before it. Yes, it’s about a… Read More »Black Hole Seen, with Data to Match
We continue to want to make these introductions pretty brief here but not this time, apparently! Here’s this week’s synopsis. Nvidia GTC 2019 announcements We discussed the recent GTC conference. Dan has been attending since well before it became the big and important conference that it is today. We get a quick update on what… Read More »Enterprises go HPC, Chips go Open Source, China goes for the top spot
The team has an animated discussion about multicore scaling, how easy it seems to be to mislead AI systems, and some good sized catches of the week. A common thread is “data” as is often the case these days. Dan makes a couple of important announcements. First is the idea that is brewing about revamping… Read More »Multicore Scaling Slow Down, and Fooling AI
Starting with this episode, we’ll get a bit more efficient in describing the episodes. Please let us know if you prefer the long format. If you just subscribe on iTunes and never see these words, well, that tells us something too! In this episode, the team discusses AI, bias in AI, and just how real… Read More »AI: Realness and Bias
Big news in the industry today was Nvidia buying Mellanox for $6.9B. This called fo an emergency session of our crack panel. While it will be several months before the full impact of this merger is felt, the RFHPC team believes this will change both the HPC and the Datacenter markets. It also signals Nvidia’s… Read More »Nvidia, Mellanox: Married!
The show starts with a brief reference to Henry’s “Gator” nickname, a shout out to listeners 13, 14, and 15, plus a bad Arm processor pun. (Puns are the lowest form of humor other than limericks, Dan wits.) This is an Arm heavy show, with our opening discussion concerning the Arm system at Sandia and… Read More »Arm for Exascale is Coming
Our conversation begins with Dan berating Henry for cheaping out on a new headset for our Radio Free HPC recordings. (Henry has since relented and pried open his wallet to purchase a truly fine headset.) Finally, we get on to the show proper. After years of futility, Intel has finally put a stake in the… Read More »The sinking of the Itanic, a respectful farewell
We open the show by talking some weather. It’s so cold at Henry’s house (in Minnesota) that he’s becoming a human superconductor and quantum computing experimenters are showing up at his house to test their systems under uber cold conditions. Shahin adds an inane joke about cold and levitation that Dan threatens to cut out… Read More »Supercomputing to Modernize the Electric Grid
We start our discussion by contemplating the fact that Shahin doesn’t have a middle name (he says he never needed one) and touching on why Henry has picked up the nick name ‘Gator’ Newman. What’s an AI supercomputer? Our first topic is whether a supercomputer can or cannot be a “AI Supercomputer.” This is based… Read More »What's an AI Supercomputer? What's up with software SMP?
After a short talk about the weather in Henry’s basement (it had just reached 60 F by the time we recorded the show), we got right down to business with an important announcement: our pal Rich Brueckner is leaving the show. He just has too much on his plate and something had to give. While… Read More »China Exascale Again (Tianhe-3 is coming), GDPR shows its teeth
In this episode of Radio Free HPC, Dan, Henry, and Shahin start with a spirited discussion of IBM’s recent announcement regarding their crowd sourced weather prediction application. Henry was dubious as to whether Big Blue could get access to the data they need in order to truly put out a valuable product. Dan had questions… Read More »Weather Forecasting Goes Crowdsourcing, Q means Quantum