@HPCpodcast-25: Satoshi Matsuoka, TOP500, Fugaku Supercomputer, Nintendo

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Recent winner of the Purple Ribbon Medal, one of Japan’s highest honors, Prof. Satoshi Matsuoka, director of the RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS) and professor of computer science at Tokyo Institute of Technology, joins us in a super fun conversation that covers a wide range of topics (time stamps inside parenthesis).

At RIKEN, Prof. Matsuoka oversaw the development and launch of the Fugaku supercomputer, currently holding the number 1 spot on the TOP500 list. As the list is about to get updated, next week, there is an expectation that the Frontier supercomputer at ORNL (which we covered in a previous episode) will claim the number 1 spot but Fugaku will likely retain its lead in some benchmarks. Previously, he was lead developer of another well-know supercomputer, TSUBAMI, the most powerful supercomputer in Japan at the time.

Here are the topics and the time-stamp in the podcast when they are discussed:

  • (start) The Purple Ribbon Medal of Honor
  • (minute 2:15) The role of Japan in supercomputing
  • (3:45) TOP500 and ORNL’s Exascale system
  • (5:00) Fugaku and Arm
  • (8:00) Why not SPARC
  • (11:30) The balance and beuty of Fugaku and its predecessor the K-Computer
  • (15:15) Notable applications of Fugaku, including Covid research
  • (25:00) Future of supercomputing and what’s next after Fugaku
  • (31:45) FPGA and CGRA
  • (36:00) Quantum Computing
  • (40:30)  Nintendo days and working with the late great Iwata-san
  • (48:30) Pursuit of perfection, with a mention of the movie Jiro Dreams of Sushi

Enjoy!

 


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