Supercomputer industry may be poised for a comeback
by Bill Catlin, Minnesota Public Radio
January 3, 2005
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Karl
Feind of Silicon Graphics says there were smiles, high fives, awe, and
relief, when an SGI machine, developed partly in Minnesota, captured
the speed title last October. (MPR Photo/Bill Catlin) |
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A
supercomputer in Rochester -- Blue Gene/L -- recently claimed the title
of fastest computer in the world. Minnesota's history of building the
fastest and most powerful computers in the world dates back to the
early 1960s. The supercomputer industry fell on hard times in the
1990s, but now may be poised for a renaissance.
St. Paul, Minn. —
Blue Gene/L project manager Steve Lewis steps into a room thundering with a massive cooling system at IBM's Rochester plant.
"Don't touch anything," he says. "It's an electrostatic sensitive area, so none of us [should] touch anything."
Lewis
heads for several rows of silvery, but unremarkable looking computer
racks, the area where Blue Gene/L is built and tested.
"The record setting computer was the first four racks in each of these four rows," says Lewis.
And
that's only a quarter of the machine headed for its first customer.
Blue Gene/L set two records this fall, the latter coming in at nearly
71 trillion calculations per second. Lewis says the record prompted
calls from proud IBM alums in the area.
"They're
very excited about what's come out of Rochester. The community's very
excited. It's a big deal for the community, that this is where the
world's speed record sits," says Lewis.
Development
of Blue Gene/L started in New York, but it's being manufactured in
Rochester. Lewis says all the pieces necessary to make the world's
fastest supercomputer happen to be in IBM's Rochester plant, which
manufactures servers.
Supercomputers
like Blue Gene/L are used to assist a variety of tasks, including
automobile and aircraft design, oil exploration, intelligence analysis
and weather forecasting. They can cost tens of millions of dollars.
Blue
Gene/L's launch customer is the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
in California. Touting the speed record last November, Energy Secretary
Spencer Abraham said the project is a deliberate investment in high
performance computing to help promote U.S. competitiveness.
I
wouldn't rule out entirely the possibility that Cray or SGI could
really get going again, and one of those two could get on to a really
rapid growth spurt. - IDC analyst, Addison Snell
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Dave
Parry, who heads the supercomputer operations of California-based
Silicon Graphics, says there's been a chorus of concern that the U.S.
has fallen behind in supercomputing.
"There
have been numerous studies over the last two to three years from almost
every agency in the U.S. government that has anything to do with
high-end technical and scientific computing, all of which have come to
virtually the same conclusion," says Dave Parry, of Silicon Graphics.
The
conclusion, says Parry, is that supercomputers are a key tool for
scientific discovery and the U.S. is not spending enough on them.
The
concerns extend beyond government. The Council on Competitiveness, a
non-profit organization of corporate, academic and labor leaders says
high performance computing is key to American industry's ability to
compete.
Steve Conway says
government interest in the industry dwindled in the 1990s. Conway works
for Seattle-based Cray, Inc., indirectly a successor to the old Cray
Research, the Twin Cities-based firm that dominated the industry for
years.
"It
looked like the U.S. was just substantially in the lead. Then all of a
sudden in early 2002 [there was] a little bit of a Sputnik-like shock,
when we found out that Japan had produced a supercomputer that in
practice, on real problems, was anywhere from 10 to 100 times faster
than anything the U.S. had," says Conway.
Conway
says U.S. computers still lag Japanese performance on real-world
problems, despite the new speed records based on testing software.
The
Japanese computer, called Earth Simulator, held the speed lead for more
than two years. Stung, the U.S. is now trying to catch up.
Congress
recently authorized $165 million in new funding over three years for
Energy Department research and development to advance high end
computing. On an annual basis, that represents only about one percent
of total supercomputer sales.
Still,
the effort is clearly making a mark on the industry and in Minnesota.
IBM is not the only supercomputer maker with a Minnesota presence to
get a hefty government contract. Silicon Graphics, which bought Cray
Research in 1996, got one too.
At
Silicon Graphics' Eagan facility Karl Feind heads into the tunnel
between two racks of computer cabinets as tall as he is. Inside, cables
curl and hang along the sides like so many white snakes.
"And
we can walk right through the middle of it here, and you can see it's a
canopy over our head, where the cables connect the two hemispheres,"
says Feind.
Software engineers here
worked on a new supercomputer built for NASA. Named Columbia in honor
of the space shuttle astronauts who died, the machine set a new speed
record of nearly 43 trillion calculations per second in October. Feind
says there were lots of smiles that day.
"There
were high fives everywhere in the hallway. There was a sense of awe
that the software and hardware system we had created could run a single
problem for eight hours without failing," says Feind. And he says there
was a sense of relief.
SGI's Dave
Parry says these are bullish times for the industry. He says the most
recent quarter saw a doubling of sales of SGI's latest supercomputer
model.
"And actually a quadrupling
of product bookings in that product line. We're seeing that in
combination with substantial wins in large deals, really around the
world," says Parry.
But that strength is not enough to make SGI profitable. As a whole, the company has been losing money.
Seattle-based
Cray, Inc. has also gotten some impressive government contracts and
officials expect a big jump in sales next year following a decline this
year. Like SGI, Cray has remnants of the old Cray Research both in the
Twin Cities and Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin.
Steve
Lewis of IBM is a little more circumspect about Blue Gene/L's sales,
even though IBM is already the biggest supplier of supercomputers.
"It's
a new machine, and so people have to kick the tires a little bit before
they're ready to engage in a big fashion," says Lewis.
Analysts also have mixed views.
Long
time supercomputer industry observer Gary Smaby is skeptical the
industry is on the cusp of boom times, despite renewed government
interest.
"I think it will help
sustain the jobs that are already here. There will be continued demand
for machines like Blue Gene and a machine like Columbia, not to mention
some of the Cray machines, but that business is relatively flat," says
Smaby.
IDC analyst Addison Snell is
somewhat more optimistic. He predicts the industry will show sales
growth of 15 to 20 percent this year. He expects continued growth, but
he says demand for the largest and most powerful machines -- which
would help SGI and Cray most -- will grow slower.
"I
wouldn't rule out entirely the possibility that Cray or SGI could
really get going again, and one of those two could get on to a really
rapid growth spurt," says Snell.
Steve
Conway of Cray says the industry is likely to grow here in Minnesota,
maybe even faster than the industry nationwide, but it's still much
smaller than it used to be.
"There
aren't nearly as many people employed in this industry in Minnesota as
there were 15 years ago, and that mainly is because Cray Research was a
much bigger company at that time, and employed somewhere [around]
1,000, [or] 1,500 people in Minnesota alone," says Conway.
Supercomputing
is a niche industry and may never be a major source of job growth for
Minnesota. But the state again had a hand in setting the latest speed
records, and that legacy may well continue.
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