For the fourth consecutive time, Tianhe-2, a supercomputer developed by China's National University of Defense Technology, has retained its position as the world's no. 1 system with a performance of 33.86 petaflop/s (quadrillions of calculations per second) on the Linpack benchmark, according to the 44th edition of the twice-yearly TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers. Read further...

Prometeus GmbH, the promoter of the TOP500 project, has relaunched the TOP500 site. The website has been redesigned to provide readers with year-round content regarding events and news in the HPC community as well as provide insights into industry and technology trends. Read further...

At the ISC Cloud'14 Conference in Heidelberg,Primeur Magazinehad the opportunity to interview Erwin van Eijk from the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) in The Hague on designing security and privacy in the Cloud. The NFI is an independent service provider, working for the prosecution and in the end for the judge in court. The NFI is working on various HPC problems. The biggest issue at this time is working on camera recognition. Read further...

At the ISC Big Data'14 Conference in Heidelberg, Primeur Magazine had the opportunity to interview Alan Priestley, Director Big Data Analytics and Stephan Gillich, Director HPC and Workstations, both active at Intel EMEA. According to Stephan Gillich, there is an overlap between High Performance Computing and Big Data Analytics. There is an overlap in the underlying technology. Hadoop is one of the key tools in data analytics and in HPC, the main instruments are clusters and servers. In fact, they are looking pretty much the same. Intel is providing technology and products to those servers. There is also an overlap in the applications. In the genomics area, there is lots of data involved which you can analyze. There is also a lot of simulation being done. The genomics area is a good example to show the overlap between data analytics and HPC. We can call this high performance data analytics. Read further...

The U.S. Department of Energy has unveiled plans to build two GPU-accelerated supercomputers - expected to deliver at least three-times greater performance than today's most powerful system - which will move the world closer to the long-held goal of exascale computing. The supercomputers, to be installed in 2017, will be based on next-generation IBM POWER servers with NVIDIA Tesla GPU accelerators and NVIDIA NVLink" high-speed GPU interconnect technology. Read further...

U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz has introduced two new High Performance Computing (HPC) awards to put the nation on a fast-track to next generation exascale computing, which will help to advance U.S. leadership in scientific research and promote America's economic and national security. Read further...

Altair has launched HyperWorks Unlimited - Virtual (HWUL-V) for Amazon Web Services (AWS). The company has showcased the technology in the Intel booth during the re:Invent global AWS user conference from Novenber 11-14 in Las Vegas, Nevada. HWUL-V integrates unlimited use of the HyperWorks computer-aided engineering (CAE) suite with PBS Professional, a high-performance computing (HPC) workload manager, and application-aware portals for HPC access and remote visualization of Big Data. Read further...

SysFera has introduced a new version of its high performance computing (HPC) and Cloud management software, SysFera-DS version 5.0, featuring immediate visualization of simulation results without downloading and opening results within applications - to gain a significant boost in productivity. As well, for the first time, HPC administrators can create custom web pages for applications improving their ability to tailor the interface to their clients' research and analysis needs. These new capabilities, along with significant enhancements to the web interface, promote user-friendly features and tighter applications' integration, so engineers and researchers can run jobs more quickly and preview results faster. Read further...

Dr. Clement Lau joins Bright Computing, a provider of management solutions for clusters and Clouds, as Director for the Asia Pacific region (APAC). Dr. Clement Lau has more than 18 years of experience helping companies expand their operations in Asia, and has held senior leadership positions at Cray, Platform Computing, N-Visio, and meZZme among others. Read further...

Bright Computing, a provider of management solutions for clusters and clouds, has made available support for the latest versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL 7) and Community Enterprise Operating System (CentOS 7). Full support for these operating systems is now available in Bright Cluster Manager, enabling customers to deploy, manage, and monitor RHEL 7 clusters using the familiar Bright interface. Read further...

UK computing is celebrating fifty years since the launch of what was at that time the largest supercomputer in the world, the Atlas 1. When built it was the size of a large detached house. Now that same computing capacity would fit in your pocket inside your mobile phone. Read further...

A pioneering collaborative project has been launched in Wales to improve bicycle safety helmet performance using state-of-the-art 3D printing and supercomputing technology. The project, led by Cardiff School of Engineering colleagues Dr. Peter Theobald and Dr. Philip Martin, is examining how 3D printed materials can be used to manufacture ultra-lightweight customised bicycle helmets to improve their safety performance during impacts. Read further...

MEGWARE and Numascale marks the strengthening of collaboration by co-exhibiting for the third consecutive year at Supercomputing. MEGWARE is a main partner for Numascale through their great capacity and extensive knowledge as an IT system vendor and integrator. It has established thorough knowledge to handle Numascale's advanced interconnect system with advanced customers. The HPC company offers servers that are well suited for building small or large multi-core and shared memory systems. Read further...

IBM, together with NVIDIA, and the Jülich Supercomputing Center, part of the largest research centre in Germany, have made plans for a new competency centre to advance the creation and optimization of research codes on GPU-accelerated OpenPOWER compatible systems. Born out of the collaborative spirit fostered by the OpenPOWER Foundation and the commitment of these three organisations to advance the HPC space, the POWER Acceleration and Design Center will be designed to combine the technology expertise of IBM and NVIDIA with the world class research capabilities of the Jülich Supercomputing Centre. Read further...

E4 Computer Engineering, an Italian manufacturer of hardware solutions for high performance computing and data centres, and Applied Micro Circuits Corporation, a global expert in computing and connectivity solutions, have made available the innovative low-power platform ARKA RK003, which is now ready to hit the market and will be showcased for the first time at SC14 in New Orleans at E4 Computer Engineering booth #4029 and Applied Micro booth #1757. Read further...

At Supercomputing 2014, high performance computing (HPC) matters - now more than ever. For Indiana University (IU), HPC has been a top priority for nearly 20 years. IU will showcase its commitment to innovation in advanced computing and networking technologies at the Supercomputing 14 conference (SC14) in New Orleans from November 16 to 21. As the largest event of its kind, SC14 brings together leading scientists and researchers from around the globe, as well as representatives from top universities, companies and organisations in the supercomputing field. Read further...

High performance computing veteran and leader, John West has been named director of Strategic Initiatives for the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at the University of Texas at Austin. He will assume his new position in December. Read further...

A new forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC) shows that the transition to the 3rd Platform is having a direct impact on data centre construction and remodelling. IDC expects the total number of data centres (all types) deployed worldwide will peak at 8.6 million in 2017 and then begin to decline slowly. This shift will be triggered by a decline in internal data centre server rooms starting in 2016 and internal server closets starting in 2017. All other data centre categories will continue to grow throughout the forecast period, with the number of service provider data centres increasing much faster. Despite a decline in the number of data centres, total worldwide data centre space will continue to increase, growing from 1.58 billion square feet in 2013 to 1.94 billion square feet in 2018. Read further...

Not long ago, it would have taken several years to run a high-resolution simulation on a global climate model. But using supercomputing resources at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), climate scientist Michael Wehner of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's Computational Research Division was able to complete a run in just three months. What he found was that not only were the simulations much closer to actual observations, but the high-resolution models were far better at reproducing intense storms, such as hurricanes and cyclones. The study titled "The effect of horizontal resolution on simulation quality in the Community Atmospheric Model, CAM5.1", was published on-line November 5, 2014, in theJournal for Advances in Modeling the Earth System. Read further...

From the 1952 MANIAC to Bonanza deployed just this month, Los Alamos National Laboratory has deployed 100 supercomputers in the last 60 years - a showcase of high-performance computing history. Read further...

The world's biggest student supercomputer challenge, the ASC student supercomputer challenge, will kick off a new session for 2015. The registration will open on November 18 during the SC14 conference with a demonstration on site. Read further...

ArrayFire is open source for free. ArrayFire is being released under the BSD 3-Clause License, which will enable unencumbered deployment and portability of ArrayFire for commercial use. ArrayFire also has new features added. Read further...

Mellanox Technologies Ltd., a supplier of high-performance, end-to-end interconnect solutions for data centre servers and storage systems, has provided sample availability for 100Gb/s Direct Attach Copper (DAC) and Active Optical Cables (AOCs) for both EDR 100Gb/s InfiniBand and 100 Gigabit Ethernet data centre networks. Mellanox will demonstrate 100Gb/s DAC cables of 2, 4, 6 and 8 meter lengths and 100 and 200 meter Active Optical Cables at the Supercomputing 2014 Conference. Read further...

Mellanox Technologies Ltd.'s FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand adapters enable the new Dell PowerEdge C4130, the next addition in the Dell PowerEdge server portfolio with superior performance for scale-out high-performance computing (HPC) workloads. Mellanox FDR 56Gb/s InfiniBand adapters deliver industry-leading bandwidth with ultra low-latency and efficient computing for performance-driven clustering applications. GPU communication acceleration with NVIDIA GPUDirect technology brings further levels of performance improvement. Mellanox InfiniBand adapters' advanced acceleration technology enables higher cluster efficiency and large scalability to tens-of-thousands of nodes. Read further...

Mellanox Technologies Ltd.'s EDR 100Gb/s solutions have been selected as key components of new supercomputers at two of the US nation's premier national labs - Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). The hybrid supercomputer design will interconnect thousands of compute nodes containing both IBM POWER CPUs and NVIDIA GPUs via Mellanox's EDR 100Gb/s InfiniBand-based solutions, providing one of the most advanced architectures of its kind for high-performance computing applications. Read further...

CoolIT Systems, a global expert in Direct Contact Liquid Cooling (DCLC) technologies, has introduced its line-up for the SC14 show in New Orleans. Exhibiting at booth #3513, CoolIT Systems will feature a 7 rack liquid cooled data centre plus multiple displays of liquid cooled servers from SuperMicro, Dell, Cisco, Penguin Computing and Boston. Debuting at SC14 is a unique Quick Disconnect Auto Ejection system that showcases an impressive capability to instantly disconnect and ensure isolation of a server in the unlikely event that system integrity is compromised. Read further...

From November 16th-21st, New Orleans will host the annual Supercomputing Conference (SC14) and feature two Invited Plenary Talks focused on how high performance computing (HPC) will continue to play a pivotal role in both the health care and entertainment industries. Read further...

What if you researched your family's genealogy, and a mysterious stranger turned out to be an ancestor? That's the surprising feeling had by a team of scientists who peered back into Europe's murky prehistoric past thousands of years ago. With sophisticated genetic tools, supercomputing simulations and modelling, they traced the origins of modern Europeans to three distinct populations. The international research team published their September 2014 results in the journalNature. Read further...

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded IBM contracts valued at $325 million to develop and deliver the world's most advanced "data centric" supercomputing systems at Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories to advance innovation and discovery in science, engineering and national security. IBM's new systems using a "data centric" approach puts computing power everywhere data resides, minimizing data in motion and energy consumption. Read further...

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) has signed a contract with IBM to bring a next-generation supercomputer to Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The OLCF's new hybrid CPU/GPU computing system, Summit, will be delivered in 2017. Summit will provide at least five times the performance of Titan, the OLCF's current leadership system, for a wide range of scientific applications. The hybrid system will support DOE's Office of Science in its broad science and energy mission, addressing the most challenging and impactful science problems for government, academia, and industry. Read further...

State-of-the-art supercomputers, sophisticated software and high-speed research networks will be on tap as Central Ohio technology experts travel to New Orleans for SC14, the international conference for high performance computing, networking, storage and analysis. Staff members from the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC), Ohio Academic Resources Network (OARnet), and Ohio Technology Consortium (OH-TECH) will be attending SC14 November 16-22 to promote the work of their organisations, attend educational workshops and network with their academic and industrial counterparts. Read further...