Data Fueled Insight and Discovery Shine at Supercomputing 2024

The International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis, otherwise known as the Supercomputing Conference, is an annual look into scientific computing and the platforms that analyze mountains of data to deliver new insights and discoveries from across the scientific arena. Much attention is given to the advancement of supercomputing systems during this conference. However, this year’s event in Atlanta revealed the world’s new #1 supercomputer with Lawrence Livermore National Labs’ El Capitan clocking in at over 2 exaflops of compute power. 

Talking to the experts

The Solidigm team was on hand to uncover how scientists are advancing understanding of our world with data, how computing advancements are making new insights possible, and how our new SSD with 122TB drive capability will further disrupt HPC cluster performance in the year ahead. Now you can listen in as Solidigm talks to these experts and discover how they are using data in world-changing applications.

1. Bits to binary stars with NASA

We spent some time with Laura Carriere, High Performance Computing Lead at NASA’s Center for Climate Simulation, to discuss how NASA is studying aerosols in the atmosphere to measure air quality and climate change. Laura also discussed how NASA innovates its supercomputing resources to keep pace with scientific requirements. All this research stems from massive amounts of data collected from satellites and balloons scattered in the atmosphere and collected by NASA teams for analysis and visualization. What’s best is the data collected by the team is available to the broader scientific community for broad research applications. Listen to the full NASA podcast here.

2. Democratizing research with National Science Foundation’s ACCESS program

While many think of HPC clusters as tools limited to leading scientific institutes, the National Science Foundation’s ACCESS program has broken barriers to students and independent researchers. We talked with John Towns, Deputy Director of the NCSA at the University of Illinois, about how ACCESS matches supercomputers with research projects and new insights derived from the program including delivering tools to search and rescue teams to help hone search missions to maximize the opportunity for favorable outcomes. Listen to the full National Science Foundation podcast here.

3. Unlocking scientific mysteries with Georgia Tech

We prioritized time to engage the hometown supercomputing team from Georgia Tech, one of the country’s leading research institutes, about how the supercomputing team partners with various research departments to accelerate discoveries. Rich Vuduc, Professor in the School of Computational Science and Engineering, described the wide range of scientific problems that Georgia Tech teams were taking on from traditional sciences to social and public policy research. Rich also shared how his team furthers Georgia Tech’s HPC platforms to keep pace with the complexity of research queries. Listen to the full Georgia Tech podcast here.

4. Delivering HPC as a service with DUG

While our conversations with research institutes were fascinating, we also wanted to learn about how underlying infrastructure was advancing. One company delivering scalable HPC cycles is DUG, an Australian leader in delivering HPC as a service to the scientific computing community. We spoke to Ron Schop, Executive Vice President, on how his team leverages their applied physics expertise and innovative infrastructure featuring liquid cooled computing compute clusters to deliver improved value to HPC customers. Listen to the full DUG podcast here.

5. Delivering standard hardware based HPC configurations with OCP

The Open Compute Project is at the forefront of open hardware design innovation fueled by AI era compute demands. We caught up with Cliff Grossner, Chief Innovation Officer for the OCP Foundation, to discuss how his organization was collaborating with leaders in the HPC community to accelerate standards-based innovation at the crux of AI and HPC cluster requirements. Listen to the full Open Compute Project podcast here.

Exploring new use cases for Solidigm’s breakthrough 122TB D5-P5336 drives

Coming on the heels of the release of Solidigm’s industry-first 122TB QLC NAND storage delivery, we wanted to talk with partners about how they saw use case evolution to take advantage of this incredible capacity for large scale data challenges. We talked to Joseph Lu, Director of Storage Technology at ASUS, about how his firm is delivering innovative AI platforms custom fit for 122TB drive capability. Tomer Hagay, Head of Product at VAST Data, shared how clusters will tap the 122TB drives to feed data to the VAST Insight Engine. GIGABYTE’s VP of Sales, Chen Lee, shared how HPC providers needed to stay nimble in delivering adaptable infrastructure, and how the industry first drives will help address customer requirements heading into the second half of the decade. 

See you in St. Louis

Supercomputing 2024 did not disappoint. We walked away with an appreciation on how foundational data helps shape the understanding of our world and our ability to navigate the most pressing challenges of our society. With the supercomputing community moving full steam ahead with innovative infrastructure re-shaping the Top 500 and beyond, scientists around the globe have access to the tools required to drive insight from data. We can’t wait until next year to get another glimpse into this exciting corner of the industry at SC’25. In the meantime, please check out all of the highlights from SC’24 to learn more about the research institutions driving innovation today and the infrastructure providers helping to fuel it.