Philippe Vannier from Atos/Bull describes in "Drowning in Data: The Race for ExaScale Computing" on the ATOS website where Bull is going with exascale computing. "Working with French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission, CEA, we are working on Tera1000 - a range of supercomputers able to deliver an exaflop. It's hard to quantify the power of such a machine: reaching a quintillion operations per second it would need over 5.8million iPhones working together to match its speed", Philippe Vannier writes. With a deadline of 2020 for the Exaflop/s, Atos/Bull's first prototype is set to be up and running in just two years and will have a computation capacity of 25 Petaflop/s, and an electricity consumption 20 times lower than the previous Tera100 model with respect to capacity. Read further...

Exascale not arriving fast enough because it is way more difficult than ten years ago when we wanted to reach petascale? Paul Messina doubts whether petascale was easier. For instance, also energy efficiency was an issue already 10 years ago. Paul Messina, Director of Science at Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, is interviewed in Scientific Computing. "In summary, in my opinion, many challenges posed by technology trends are not fundamentally different from those posed by previous transitions. Instead of wringing our hands and claiming we need to abandon our current technologies (hardware and software writ large), we should examine carefully the software ecosystem that works and is widely used today and then decide what to throw out, what to refine/adapt, and what may require inventions", Messina tells to Scientific Computing. Read further...

Roberto Viola started yesterday as the new Director General of DG CONNECT at the European Commission. DG CONNECT is also responsible for e-Infrastructures, including the PRACE supercomputer programme. He started his first day of work with a blog. "A proper industrial strategy for the digital sector is also a must for Europe, and challenges such as free flows of data, cloud computing and supercomputing will be a big part of our work. And underpinning all this is our support for Europe's research and innovation capacity", Roberto Viola writes. Read further...