The CEO of chip big AMD has stated that the high-performance computing (HPC) business wants to start out turning into considerably extra environment friendly, or it will need to show to nuclear vitality.
AMD CPU and GPU efficiency sometimes double each 2.4 years which is sweet progress by any means, however energy effectivity has not seen such appreciable enhancements.
Speaking at International Solid-State Circuits Conference, Dr Lisa Su famous that with zettaflop HPCs on the horizon, we should always flip our consideration to efficiency per unit of vitality to be able to make zettaflop computation a actuality.
Going nuclear
According to present traits and assuming that progress doesn’t decelerate, AMD reckons that zettaflop computation might be right here in a couple of decade (though Intel reckons it might be right here in about half that point).
The actuality is that after they arrive isn’t as necessary as after they will turn into accessible on a usable, energy-efficient scale.
Currently, Su generously estimates that an HPC able to efficiency measurable in zettaflops would use 500MW of energy, or the equal of a number of thousand properties. To present such energy, constantly and reliably, it’s possible {that a} nuclear reactor can be required.
While there have been noticeable enhancements to effectivity in earlier a long time, progress is starting to sluggish because the room for additional enhancements diminishes.
“This flattening of efficiency becomes the largest challenge that we have to solve, both from a technology standpoint as well as from a sustainability standpoint,” stated Su.
She defined that compute effectivity ought to turn into the primary precedence to be able to clear up the issue. While our current means have slowed down, Su defined that there might be different options together with using synthetic intelligence and machine studying to high-performance computing.
While there might be a nominal sacrifice to accuracy, engaged on bettering this might be the best way ahead. Whichever mixture of strategies AMD and different firms finally use to ship efficiency enhancements, it’s clear that the journey between the first zettaflop-capable HPC and real-world use is prone to be a protracted one.
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Via The Register (opens in new tab)
…. to be continued
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