Wednesday, July 11th 2012

AMD Selected by U.S. Government to Help Engineer and Shape the Future of HPC

AMD today announced that it was selected for an award of $12.6 million for two research projects associated with the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Extreme-Scale Computing Research and Development Program, known as "FastForward." The DOE award provides up to $9.6 million to AMD for processor-related research and up to $3 million for memory-related researchi. AMD's award-winning AMD Opteron processor has powered many of the world's largest supercomputers over the past decade and the company invented the world's first and only Accelerated Processing Unit (APU).

FastForward is a jointly funded collaboration between DOE Office of Science, and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to initiate partnerships with multiple companies to accelerate the research and development of critical technologies needed for extreme scale computing, on the path toward exascale computing. Exascale computing is essentially a grand challenge to provide the next level of computational power required to help ensure the prosperity and security of the United States. The DOE's strategic plan seeks to address the nation's most pressing scientific challenges by advancing simulation-based scientific discovery made possible by the world's highest performing exascale supercomputers.

Exascale supercomputers will be capable of performing one quintillion (or a billion billion) calculations per second, roughly one thousand times faster than today's fastest available supercomputers. Exascale supercomputers are designed to break through the current limitations of today's supercomputers by dramatically reducing the length of run time required to perform calculations and improving the capability to perform detailed analyses of complex systems. Medical science, astrophysics, climate modeling, and national security all have applications with extreme computing requirements.

"To prepare for the next phase of extreme scale computing, NNSA and DOE Office of Science are taking a proactive step in jointly making strategic investments in key areas such as processor, file storage and memory technologies with AMD and others," said Thuc Hoang of DOE's National Nuclear Security Administration. "A key to successfully developing next-generation HPC capabilities is bringing together the know-how and best minds of industry leaders and national labs to work on this grand challenge."

"We're honored to be selected for this research project to help drive the next frontier for high-performance computing," said Alan Lee, AMD's corporate vice president for Advanced Research and Development. "AMD has long been the technology partner of choice for many of the world's leading high-performance computing providers. This award from the DOE will fund critical research and development required to enable high-performance, power-efficient exascale systems. Additionally, AMD will undertake work to drive advances in memory bandwidth and communication speed, which are essential for heterogeneous architecture, exascale-class supercomputers with thousands of processors."

According to Dr. William J. Harrod, Division Director of Research, in the DOE Office of Science, ASCR, "extreme scale technology will create a whole new class of high performance computing systems that can achieve 1,000 times the performance of today's petascale computers while limiting growth in space and power requirements. The primary goal of the Department's exascale effort is to ensure the availability of leading-edge computing assets for national security and scientific discovery. The development of high performance, energy-efficient processor and memory technologies are critical to achieving the Department's goals and AMD is initiating innovative designs for these components."

AMD Opteron processors are used today in many of the world's leading supercomputers, including IBM's Roadrunner computer at the DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory, which in 2008 was the first supercomputer to reach sustained petaflop performance. AMD Opteron processors were also used in the world's second petascale supercomputer, Cray's Jaguar supercomputer deployed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Moreover, the DOE announced last fall that 19,200 AMD Opteron 6200 Series processors will be used to help power their new Titan system also at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is expected to provide peak performance in excess of 20 petaflops when it becomes fully operational by early 2013. AMD Opteron processors were also selected for the Blue Waters supercomputing project at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

According to the report, "The Future of Computing Performance, Game Over or Next Level?" by the National Academy of Sciences in 2011, "Virtually every sector of society - manufacturing, financial services, education, government, the military, entertainment, and so on - has become dependent on continued growth in computing performance to drive industrial productivity, increase efficiency, and enable innovation." To address this need, the FastForward program funds new or existing innovative technologies targeted for productization in a five-to-ten year timeframe. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory represented seven DOE laboratories and the DOE as the Source Selection Official for this award.
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27 Comments on AMD Selected by U.S. Government to Help Engineer and Shape the Future of HPC

#1
fullinfusion
Vanguard Beta Tester
The USA should stop giving there money away and focus on getting outa debt. Good read though.
Posted on Reply
#2
tacosRcool
fullinfusionThe USA should stop giving there money away and focus on getting outa debt. Good read though.
Well if the government wasn't spending all our taxpayer dollars on things we don't need
Posted on Reply
#3
INSTG8R
Vanguard Beta Tester
fullinfusionThe USA should stop giving there money away and focus on getting outa debt. Good read though.
LOL like as if Canada isn't doing the same things :rolleyes:
Posted on Reply
#4
Frick
Fishfaced Nincompoop
INSTG8RLOL like as if Canada isn't doing the same things :rolleyes:
Like any country isn't doing the same thing.
Posted on Reply
#5
mayankleoboy1
Good

God knows they need the money to compete with Intel
Posted on Reply
#6
Steevo
National security to listen to your phone calls and read your e-mail in real time then calculate your position based on the source IP, then have the thought police come get you for reconditioning.
Posted on Reply
#7
FordGT90Concept
"I go fast!1!11!1!"
DOE doesn't do wiretapping. They simulate nuclear detonations so they don't have to detonate nuclear weapons (sounds stupid, because it is).

I'm opposed to governments handing out cash to private companies and $13 million dollars is chump change. AMD benefits little from this and it definitely won't make them competitive with Intel.
Posted on Reply
#8
ChaoticAtmosphere
INSTG8RLOL like as if Canada isn't doing the same things :rolleyes:
And the Conservatives are making damn sure of that...as they always do.
Posted on Reply
#9
INSTG8R
Vanguard Beta Tester
ChaoticAtmosphereAnd the Conservatives are making damn sure of that...as they always do.
Yeah the 1/2 Billion Dollars to Afghanistan was a little shocking to say the least.:wtf:
Posted on Reply
#10
Lionheart
SteevoNational security to listen to your phone calls and read your e-mail in real time then calculate your position based on the source IP, then have the thought police come get you for reconditioning.
Well said:cool:
Posted on Reply
#11
Steven B
they should have used intel for that.
DOE should focus on overseeing our power grid, not stupid stuff they do.
Posted on Reply
#12
MxPhenom 216
ASIC Engineer
mayankleoboy1God knows they need the money to compete with Intel
They have already steered the other way. They are not focusing on competing with Intel in the desktop market. They are focusing on their APUs, and quite frankley dominating.
Posted on Reply
#13
m1dg3t
Nice, AMD's been picking up some hefty contracts lately! Think I may have to buy some stock :cool:

Chaotic: I feel ya, conservatives are basically US puppets. We're still walking funny from Mulrooney :banghead::
Posted on Reply
#14
ensabrenoir
SteevoNational security to listen to your phone calls and read your e-mail in real time then calculate your position based on the source IP, then have the thought police come get you for reconditioning.
Good thing they picked amd....were safe ...by the time this thing gets optimized well have personal cloaking devices
Posted on Reply
#15
D007
fullinfusionThe USA should stop giving there money away and focus on getting outa debt. Good read though.
The only way that will happen is civil war..
I'm down ^^..
It's only a matter of time with how horribly they have been running our country..
Makes me pissed to be an American lately..
I hate saying that but I am disgusted at our politicans and what they have done to us..

We can't pay teachers salary or get new books, but we can always spend millions on military BS.. yes it is BS.. It's been BS for 10 years now. the military is overinflated and is a liability at this point. It is not an asset.. It is sucking this country dry.. :banghead:
Posted on Reply
#16
Steven B
SteevoNational security to listen to your phone calls and read your e-mail in real time then calculate your position based on the source IP, then have the thought police come get you for reconditioning.
they already do that
Posted on Reply
#17
TheGuruStud
D007The only way that will happen is civil war..
I'm down ^^..
It's only a matter of time with how horribly they have been running our country..
Makes me pissed to be an American lately..
I hate saying that but I am disgusted at our politicans and what they have done to us..

We can't pay teachers salary or get new books, but we can always spend millions on military BS.. yes it is BS.. It's been BS for 10 years now. the military is overinflated and is a liability at this point. It is not an asset.. It is sucking this country dry.. :banghead:
since WWII - every war since has been based on a lie and are completely for profit/control

At least AMD is getting recognition for their accomplishments.
Posted on Reply
#18
AsRock
TPU addict
ensabrenoirGood thing they picked amd....were safe ...by the time this thing gets optimized well have personal cloaking devices
Good thing they picked amd....were lucky ..Intel would of wanted 10x more
Posted on Reply
#19
laszlo
D007The only way that will happen is civil war..
I'm down ^^..
It's only a matter of time with how horribly they have been running our country..
Makes me pissed to be an American lately..
I hate saying that but I am disgusted at our politicans and what they have done to us..

We can't pay teachers salary or get new books, but we can always spend millions on military BS.. yes it is BS.. It's been BS for 10 years now. the military is overinflated and is a liability at this point. It is not an asset.. It is sucking this country dry.. :banghead:
since u.s. start to have debt is dry... now you're empty but nobody have the gut to admit it;the only thing which keep things running is the currency printing nonstop;when this new bubble explode we'll be f...ed all again... and the time to destruction will come.
Posted on Reply
#20
TheoneandonlyMrK
AsRockGood thing they picked amd....were lucky ..Intel would of wanted 10x more
:toast:
Posted on Reply
#21
Aquinus
Resident Wat-man
Depends on what you think is worth while to spend your money on. This definitely could create jobs which would lower unemployment and lower unemployment tends to be followed by increased consumer confidence in the purchasing power of their money. Cutting money in the wrong places could reduce the number of both public and private sector jobs which isn't what the US needs right now.

It's important to promote the right things, and everyone already knows that technology is the future.
Posted on Reply
#22
amd/atifiend
Hate to say it but stepping out of desktop processor competition was the best move they have made recently.........seems they are using the loot to invest in diversification/future tech. Really top of the line chips are stagnant anyway....the current processors are years beyond most consumer software.
Posted on Reply
#23
fullinfusion
Vanguard Beta Tester
D007The only way that will happen is civil war..
I'm down ^^..
It's only a matter of time with how horribly they have been running our country..
Makes me pissed to be an American lately..
I hate saying that but I am disgusted at our politicans and what they have done to us..

We can't pay teachers salary or get new books, but we can always spend millions on military BS.. yes it is BS.. It's been BS for 10 years now. the military is overinflated and is a liability at this point. It is not an asset.. It is sucking this country dry.. :banghead:
Yup I hear ya!!

Im a Canadian that spends 5 outta 7 days in the states every week and I see the shit doing down!

Ever listen to This Guy?

Main page HERE
Posted on Reply
#24
Aquinus
Resident Wat-man
fullinfusionYup I hear ya!!

Im a Canadian that spends 5 outta 7 days in the states every week and I see the shit doing down!

Ever listen to This Guy?

Main page HERE
That's what happens when you (when I say "you" I mean, I, and other Americans,) live in a country where the military expenditure is larger than the rest of the world combined. People always seem to get pissed when I say that the DoD's budget needs to be slashed, though.
Posted on Reply
#25
IceCreamBarr
Republic vs Democracy?

I thought the US was a Republic and not a Democracy? If that is the case, where on Earth did the US Gov't get the power to make any of these spending decisions? A Republic Gov't is not intended to spend any money except on defence (not offence like the US currently has) and on the upholding of rights.

The entire planet would be better off if the population of the US was reminded of the distinction between the 2 Gov't types, and to what extent they have strayed.
Posted on Reply
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