As this writer makes clear nano photonics is kicking over the traces of
conventional computer technology and replacing electrons with photons is even
turning Moore
This throws away all inhibitors in achieving the holodeck. I bring that up because all can imagine it
and can also comprehend the massive computational power necessary. This makes it all true. We will live to see it.
Actual cost will continue to drop like a stone and that gig of storage
will seem as quaint as the meg you were once proud to own. How about we supply you with the entire
contents of civilization digital efforts?
Exaflop computing: Moore
By Jason
Perlow | December 2, 2010,
Summary
Silicon Nanophotonics will usher in a completely
new age of computing and power applications that we’ve only seen on Star Trek.
Silicon Nanophotonics will usher in a completely new age of computing
and power applications that we’ve only seen on Star Trek (image: IBM)
The
universe has a funny way of playing karma tricks on us writers that follow the
tech industry and dare to make sweeping prognostications about future trends.
For example, yesterday, my
ZDNet Storage Bits blogging colleague Robin Harris wrote that the
industry may have hit the
wall in terms of increasing computing performance.
Then on the same day my
employer, IBM, pulled the rug out
from under him. Sorry
Robin. It happens to the best of us. Seriously, I feel for you man.
The funny thing about Moore’s Law is
that every single time the industry calls for its inevitable demise, the Gods
of Technology come and knock you on your ass. When we think we’ve pushed
lithography and compacting transistors to their absolute limit, an advance in
technology allows the trend to continue as it always has been.
This
time, however, instead of just proving itself consistently correct, Moore’s Law
is going to have to be completely re-written — instead of microprocessor
technology doubling its performance every two years, we’ll be looking forward
to ten to twenty fold increases in computational power, at a bare minimum,
every five years.
This
increase in performance is so significant that the math itself is mind-boggling
and it becomes difficult to actually relate to it in conventional terms, or
even express it in a quantifiable fashion that makes sense to information
technology practitioners outside of very high-end scientific research.
Today, advances in
microprocessors are built on the premise of cramming as many transistors onto a
piece of silicon as possible. Over the last four decades, we’ve continued to
advance processing power by using different lithography techniques that allow
semiconductors to be manufactured
in densities of continually decreasing nanometers in width.
Robin may indeed be correct
that we may have hit the wall with this approach and advances using
conventional microprocessor design may only result in very small incremental
improvements. Eleven nanometers may be
the practical limit as to how small we can go before we hit the physical limits
of what can be done using current semiconductor technology.
However, what IBM showed to
the public on December 1, 2010 changes the game dramatically, especially for supercomputing applications.
Eventually, these advances will filter down to the enterprise systems and even
consumers.
Artist’s conception of the future application of photonic routing
elements onto a silicon wafer (IBM)
This technology — with a name
pulled seemingly right out of Star Trek is called CMOS Integrated Silicon Nanophotonics.
Without getting too
intergalactic and too technical of a description of how it actually works, it
is essentially the fusion of optical technology with semiconductor technology.
Instead of using semiconductor pathways to route data and for the processor
interconnects, light pulses are being used instead, using components
called Silicon
Nanoscale Photonic and Electronic Transceivers, or SNIPERS.
To put all of this techno-jargon in the proper
perspective, one must understand what is currently the benchmark for most
powerful supercomputer in the world, the Tianhe-1A.
This powerful Chinese supercomputer has achieved 2.67 Petaflop/s or 2.67 quadrillion floating
point operations, per second.
This is so amazingly fast that it realizes the kind of
scientific research and advanced simulation that only 10 years ago could only
exist in a computer scientist’s wet dreams. But the Tianhe-1A uses strictly
conventional computer technology, assembled from over 14,000 Intel Xeon 5670-series
x86 processors and 7,000 nVidia Tesla GPUs using a custom high-speed interconnect
network that operates at 160Gbps per second.
But compared to future nanophotonics-based systems,
assessing the legacy performance of the Tianhe-1A will be like comparing the
top speed of a Segway personal transport to that of a Bugatti Veyron.
Or an X-15.
The first application of IBM’s nanophotonics technology
will be used in the Blue Waters supercomputer, which will be installed
at the National Center for
Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in Urbana , Illinois
However, even
the Blue Waters supercomputer will become a clunky dinosaur once more and more
nanophotonics elements are integrated onto microprocessors and replace many of
the functions that traditional semiconductors perform today. And as with all
supercomputing technologies, the equivalent of N minus 2 generations of
processor performance will quickly find their way into enterprise systems and
even consumer electronics.
Projected technological
progression of photonics integration in supercomputing (IBM)
Eventually, perhaps by the year 2020 or even sooner,
nanophotonic supercomputers will exist that approach the Exaflop range in terms of performance. What’s
an Exaflop? Well, try measuring the aggregate performance of about 250 Blue Waters or 1000
Tianhe-1Asupercomputers and that’s what you’ll get. Did your head just
explode? No? Because mine just did.
So with Exaflop-level supercomputing and enterprise
computing, or even Petaflop-level consumer computing, just
what exactly can you do with
all of that processing power?
Well, with Exaflop/s, you can do the sort of things that
take current supercomputers weeks or years to
do in only minutes or days. It
would allow the average citizen to gene sequence their babies the moment they
are born to anticipate future diseases for an entire lifetime, or sequence
their own DNA and apply corrective action as needed, such as synthesize custom
medications.
It would allow
for the real-time simulation of complex systems such as world weather and
allow for meteorological science to advance at a level approaching magic or
witchcraft — the ability to accurately model how destructive storms such
as tornadoes and hurricanes actually work and form, and accurately predict how
they will behave.
It would permit our various government
intelligence agencies, such as the National Security Agency and well as the National Reconnaissance
Office to
perform advanced signal intelligence (SIGINT) and space
imaging in real time, determine
threats to our national security and respond to it in kind with military
strikes and with covert operations almost instantaneously. It would completely
re-define what we understand today as rapid response and operational readiness.
The very same technology used for military applications,
along with a much larger global array of radio telescopes than what we possess
today, could also be used to perform much more comprehensive real-time signal
spectrum analysis of extraterrestrial radio emissions and actually allow SETI to prove the existence of the E.T’s
we’ve been trying to locate for over 40 years, if those signals do indeed
exist.
Beyond brute
force computational applications, Exaflop and commodity Petaflop computing will
almost certainly allow for the creation of intelligent robots and software
agents, perhaps as brilliant as a trained circus dog, an advanced primate, a
five year old child, or even more depending on advancements in computer
learning.
It would allow for the real-time rendering
of computer-generated imagery from today’s biggest and most expensive Hollywood blockbuster films (or even better) in virtual
reality or virtual worlds for the average citizen. These types of games and
fully-immersive artificial realities would make the most advanced XBOX 360 or
Playstation 3 first-person game look about as sophisticated as PONG.
Essentially, we’re talking about the delivery of The Matrix as a commercial software product.
There are
certainly other applications for commodity Petaflop and Exaflop supercomputing
that people haven’t even dreamed of yet. But I think we can say for sure that Moore
What else will
we do with commodity Petaflop and Exaflop computing?Talk Back and Let
Me Know.
Disclaimer: The postings and
opinions on this blog are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s
positions, strategies or opinions.
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