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Scientists use supercomputer to create ‘first living robot’

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Scientists at the University of Vermont and Tufts University have created what they claim is the world’s first living robot. (See video below.)

The scientists say they have repurposed living cells, taken from frog embryos, and assembled them into “entirely new life-forms”.

The millimeter-wide “xenobots” can move toward a target, perhaps pick up a payload – like a medicine that needs to be carried to a specific place inside a patient – and heal themselves after being cut. [Read more…] about Scientists use supercomputer to create ‘first living robot’

IBM develops ‘world’s most powerful commercial supercomputer’ for Total

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IBM has built Pangea III, which it claims is the world’s most powerful commercial supercomputer, for Total, a global energy company operating in more than 130 countries.

The new IBM POWER9-based supercomputer will help Total more accurately locate new resources and better assess the potential associated revenue opportunities.

According to Total, Pangea III requires 1.5 Megawatts, compared to 4.5 MW for its predecessor system. Combined with the increased performance of Pangea III, Total has reported that they have observed that the new system uses less than 10% the energy consumption per petaflop as its predecessor.

[Read more…] about IBM develops ‘world’s most powerful commercial supercomputer’ for Total

Nvidia builds supercomputer to develop self-driving cars

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Nvidia unveils DGX SuperPOD, ‘world’s 22nd fastest supercomputer’. By Charlie Boyle, Nvidia

In a clear demonstration of why artificial intelligence leadership demands the best compute capabilities, Nvidia has unveiled what it claims is “the world’s 22nd fastest supercomputer” – DGX SuperPOD – which provides AI infrastructure that meets the massive demands of the company’s autonomous-vehicle deployment program.

The system was built in just three weeks with 96 Nvidia DGX-2H supercomputers and Mellanox interconnect technology. Delivering 9.4 petaflops of processing capability, it has the muscle for training the vast number of deep neural networks required for safe self-driving vehicles.

Customers can buy this system in whole or in part from any DGX-2 partner based on Nvidia’s DGX SuperPOD design. [Read more…] about Nvidia builds supercomputer to develop self-driving cars

Fujitsu begins production of post-K supercomputer

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Fujitsu Limited has announced that, working with RIKEN, it has completed the design of Post-K, the successor to the K supercomputer.

The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) is aiming to start the public service of Post-K around 2021 or 2022.

Fujitsu has now concluded an official contract with RIKEN to manufacture, ship, and install hardware for Post-K.

[Read more…] about Fujitsu begins production of post-K supercomputer

AMD claims its Frontier is ‘the world’s fastest supercomputer’

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Chipmaker AMD claims its new “Frontier” system will be the fastest supercomputer in the world.

AMD is working with the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and supercomputing specialist Cray on the system.

The three jointly announced what is expected to be “the world’s fastest exascale-class supercomputer”, scheduled to be delivered to ORNL in 2021.

[Read more…] about AMD claims its Frontier is ‘the world’s fastest supercomputer’

Intel and Cray contracted by US government to develop ‘first exascale supercomputer’

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Chip giant Intel and high-performance computing specialist Cray are both working with the US government’s Department of Energy to develop what is claimed to be the world’s first exascale supercomputer.

The word “exascale” in this context refers to computing systems capable of at least one billion billion – or one quintillion – floating-point operations, or FLOPs.

That’s 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 computer calculations per second and represents a thousandfold increase over petascale supercomputers, which is the de facto standard today.  [Read more…] about Intel and Cray contracted by US government to develop ‘first exascale supercomputer’

Fujitsu supercomputer ranked in global top 5

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Fujitsu has announced that its AI Bridging Cloud Infrastructure (ABCI) system has been ranked fifth in the world, and first in Japan, in the TOP500 international performance ranking of supercomputers.

ABCI has also taken eighth place in the world in Green500, which ranks outstanding energy saving performance.

Fujitsu developed ABCI, Japan’s fastest open AI infrastructure featuring a large-scale, power-saving cloud platform geared toward AI processing, based on a tender issued by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST).

[Read more…] about Fujitsu supercomputer ranked in global top 5

America’s Summit named world’s fastest supercomputer

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The US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is once again officially home to the fastest supercomputer in the world, according to the Top500 List, a semiannual ranking of the world’s fastest computing systems.

The recently launched Summit supercomputer was announced as number one at the ISC High Performance conference in Frankfurt, Germany. The designation recognizes the IBM-built system as the science community’s most powerful computational tool for solving problems in energy, advanced materials, artificial intelligence, and other domains.

Summit is the third ORNL system to be ranked number one by Top500, following in the footsteps of the Jaguar and Titan supercomputers. Jaguar ranked as the world’s fastest system in November 2009 and June 2010, while Titan held the title in November 2012.  [Read more…] about America’s Summit named world’s fastest supercomputer

Fujitsu completes ‘post-K supercomputer’ prototype and begins trials

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Fujitsu and Riken say their the joint development of the successor to the K supercomputer – one of the fastest in the world – is complete and is beginning trials.

The so-called “post-K” is a supercomputer that the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has chosen as a successor to the K computer, is moving forward, with the goal of beginning full operations around 2021.

Fujitsu has now completed the prototype central processing unit chip that will serve as the core of post-K, commencing functionality field trials.  [Read more…] about Fujitsu completes ‘post-K supercomputer’ prototype and begins trials