DARPA’s challenge to computing community: Build us a super petaflop computer that fits in 19” cabinet!
By Tarry Singh at 26 June, 2009, 7:49 am
El Reg reporting. While the Bush gov was run by mules, this gov is really taking some daring steps. Take a look at the notional self-aware OS (SAOS) on page 8.
The military boffins say none of that is acceptable. They want a petaflop machine that fits in a single ExtremeScale cabinet and can be powered by a fairly normal 80-horsepower generator (that includes cooling, by the way). Furthermore, the UHPC supercomputer-in-a-box is to be programmable by ordinary coders who don’t have a deep understanding of its hardware.
This last bit is to be achieved, perhaps, by a notional “self aware operating system” which will determine the best way to use the massive resources available to it without the need for human programmers to intervene.
Full details on DARPA’s concept for the notional UHPC programme can be read in pdf here. The agency says that if feedback from the computing community is positive, it will move forward with a formal announcement inviting proposals for funding.
Naturally, as with all DARPA projects, it’s relatively unlikely that this one will reach fruition. Petaflop computers will probably remain huge, power-hungry and difficult to program for the moment.
But if UHPC succeeds, we can expect some interesting developments. US boffins in charge of existing petaflop machines have already said that their equipment “throws open the door to eventually achieving human-like cognitive performance in electronic computers”. As an example, they consider that such computers could be able to process 2D visuals in the same way the human brain does to achive such tasks as driving a car. To date, robotic vehicles can’t develop a useful picture of road traffic merely from video – they generally use 3D-mapping laser radar or such techniques, so as to make the computing problems practically feasible.
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