1. The Future HPC Ecosystem
Dr. Anne C. Fitzpatrick
Department of Science & Technology Studies, Virginia Tech
30 April 2014, UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, UCSD

2. Introduction
 Need to consider: many people outside of our field
have never heard of HPC
 Yet now within our field a lot of people are thinking
hard about the future of HPC
 HPC being forced into a critical period of
change/evolution/revolution
 I don’t want to focus too much on individual
technologies today as I do the larger HPC
ecosystem
 I don’t intend to make predictions today
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3. 2012 HPC Net Assessment for US Congress
 The entire HPC Ecosystem
matters
 We live in a globalized HPC
environment
 Revolutionary changes in
power management and
memory utilization (among
other things) are most likely
required to get to the next
levels (i.e. useable exascale)
 Drivers of HPC have changed
dramatically
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4. How do we define HPC today?
 Mostly what we as a community talk about is “big
iron” scientific computing
 Depending on how you define it, HPC is everywhere
and nearly ubiquitous today
 Yet HPC is largely invisible to most people
 “They [US Congress] know the cost [of supercomputers] but they
don’t know the value.” – U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL)
 Almost anyone can build some form of high
performance computer today
 Virginia Tech No. 480 on Top 500 list with HokieSpeed 120TF
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5. Global Supply Chain & Trade
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6. Changing Drivers of HPC
 Until the 1990s, national defense needs (i.e. nuclear
weapons modeling and simulation and other needs) drove
the state of the art of HPC
 1996 seminal essay by Sociologist Donald MacKenzie,
“Nuclear Weapons Laboratories and the Development of
Supercomputing”
 Commercial, consumer drivers far surpassing national
security drivers of HPC today
 Governments still have a big role in technology
innovation but it’s a changing one
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7. Future Computing: A Broad Array
 It’s clear that exascale is a next big step
 We’re already going down this path
 China, US, Japan, Russia, EU all intend to get there around 2020
 End of CMOS in not too distant future?
 Important to pursue basic research on other unique
or non-CMOS technologies
 Superconducting
 Quantum
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8. Applications and Humanity’s Future
 UN Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change 2014: The Worst is
Yet to Come
 Increasingly extreme
climate/environmental events and trends
 There is a national/global security angle to
climate change- it is a threat multiplier
 How do we measure the cost of human
lives saved?
 Gene Sequencing/Medical
Applications
 Understanding the human brain
 Understanding paths of social
influence8

9. Coming to Terms with Today’s HPC Landscape
 National/Global security is still important, but not the
driver of HPC anymore
 Consumer demand will continue to outpace government
demands
 “We now live in the age of customer capitalism.” –
Clayton Christensen, October 2011
 Society and commerce are close to being completely
digitalized
 Effective HPC of the future will demand increased
interdisciplinary teams
 Ecosystem approach is required to succeed
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10. Thank You
Questions and Discussion
Anne Fitzpatrick
acbfitz@vt.edu
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