The OrionX Podcast Channel
Big Ideas. Simplified.
Join the OrionX team and guests in lively discussions of Big Ideas in Tech, covering trends and products that can impact your investment decisions and change the technology options you consider.
HPC, AI
Join Shahin Khan and Doug Black, insideHPC’s editor-in-chief, in their weekly discussion of key technology trends that drive high performance computing and artificial intelligence.
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News and happenings in the world of marketing, from the board room to customer programs, with Shahin Khan and Doug Garnett of Protonik.net.Subscribe to Podcast
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Podcasts
@HPCpodcast-53: Warfare as Product Development, Intel Roadmap
When soldiers are software engineers a new warfare emerges. Modern warfare is similar to, and needs, high tech product development with fast cycles and incremental improvement. The new Technopolitics section starts with the role of software engineers enlisted in the Ukrain war. Next is the House Committee on Science Space and Technology hearing on “US, China, and the Fight for Global Leadership: Building a U.S. National Science and Technology Strategy”. New and substantial funding (£800m) for the UK Exascale program promises to bring the UK into the exascale world by 2046. (This was subsequently complemented by another £2.5B for quantum technologies.) Under the HPC-AI section of the podcast, we discuss the recent changes to the Intel high-end GPU roadmap and lament the lost opportunity to communicate that better.
@HPCpodcast-52: AI iPhone Moment, Virtual Quantum, Silicon Photonics
In what might become a regular segment, we cover important advances in tech that signal changes in markets and policies. This time, we discuss the iPhone moment in AI and the ensuing AI gold rush, virtual quantum computers, and how silicon photonics can change the chip industry.
Mktg_Podcast-24: Defining Success, Econometrics, Loyalty
Shahin and Doug discuss a variety of hot topics in marketing, starting what marketing success means, which leads to the difficulties in digital attribution and interpreting data, and whether econometrics can be a solution (as suggested in a recent article in The Drum, “Digital attribution is dead! Les Binet tells us why marketers need econometrics in 2023”, by Samuel Scott). They also get deeper into how the concept of “customer satisfaction” actually correlates to product sales.
@HPCpodcast-51: Bob Coecke on Quantum in Pictures (Book)
In the The Messenger Lectures in 1964 at MIT, Richard Feynman said “On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. … Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, ‘But how can it be like that?’ because you will get ‘down the drain’, into a blind alley from which nobody has escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.”
Why is that? And can the teaching and understanding of Quantum Mechanics be simplified without loss of accuracy or mathematical rigor? For the answer, you have come to the right podcast!
Bob Coecke, co-author with Stefano Gogioso of the recently-released book Quantum in Pictures: A New Way to Understand the Quantum World joins us to discuss why quantum mechanics is so hard, the inspirations behind the book, and how he’s working to make quantum computing more accessible through his work.
Bob is Chief Scientist at Quantinuum, Distinguished Visiting Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Emeritus Fellow at Wolfson College Oxford. For the previous two decades, he was Professor of Quantum Foundations, Logics and Structures at the Department of Computer Science at Oxford University, where he co-founded and led a multi-disciplinary Quantum Group that grew to 50 members and supervised close to 70 PhD students. He pioneered Categorical Quantum Mechanics, ZX-calculus, DisCoCat natural language meaning, mathematical foundations for resource theories, Quantum Natural Language Processing, and DisCoCirc natural language meaning. His work has been headlined by various media outlets, including Forbes, New Scientist, PhysicsWorld, ComputerWeekly. He’s also a musician and painter.
@HPCpodcast-50: Quantum, AI Chatbots, IBM Cloud’s AI Supercomputer
The latest news in Quantum Computing, as well as Google’s response to ChatGPT, Bard, IBM cloud’s new AI supercomputer, which also leads to a discussion of IBM.
OrionX Download Podcast: Crypto Winter, SBT, CBDC
The crypto winter arrived but a lot continues to happen in the cryptocurrency industry. Stephen and Shahin cover the current state of things, from some of the causes of significant failures, to Bitcoin’s recent rise, new developments in Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), and self-sovereign identity (SSI) and Soul-Bound Tokens (SBT).
Mktg_Podcast-23: AI in Marketing, Tie-ins, Add-ons, Science of
AI in marketing given all the new advances, marketing as a science, add-on marketing (ice cream cones), and tie-in marketing (Nike-Tiffany campaign) and the risks of “rebranding”.
@HPCpodcast-49: 12 Myths & Legends with Satoshi Matsuoka and Torsten Hoefler
So many great ideas in tech but how do you assess them scientifically? In “Myths and Legends in High-Performance Computing“, Satoshi Matsuoka, Jens Domke, Mohamed Wahib, Aleksandr Drozd, and Torsten Hoefler tackle 12 important topics, from major technology areas to specific capabilities in future HPC systems, to application performance. They help formulate the right questions, and instigate the important discussions, by posing the topics as myths and legends in an enjoyable and humorous paper. Also check out InsideHPC’s coverage of the article: “Conventional Wisdom Watch: Matsuoka & Co. Take on 12 Myths of HPC.” We caught up with Prof. Matsuoka and Hoefler, one in an airport, to discuss the paper and some of the major topics. Really fun and insightful.
@HPCpodcast-48: Handel Jones on China and the AI Race
Join us for an insightful discussion with Dr. Handel Jones, author of the recent book When AI Rules the World: China, the U.S., and the Race to Control a Smart Planet, and CEO of International Business Strategies, Inc. Subjects covered include where the United States stands compared to China in advanced technologies, trade wars, chip fabrication economics and capacity, battery technologies, demographics, Taiwan, rare earths, Covid, and what the future might hold.
@HPCpodcast-47: New Chips from Intel, 2023 Predictions, AI
In the first episode of 2023, Shahin and Doug discuss the recent chip announcements and their implications for HPC. Also covered are industry predictions for the year to come that were featured in the InsideHPC article, An AI-Flavored Set of HPC Predictions for 2023, AI for public use, and a promise to invite Prof. Matsuoka to discuss his recent paper on common myths in HPC.
Mktg_Podcast-22: CES, Who Decides?, DiffDist Again
In the first episode of 2023, Shahin and Doug discuss their takeaways from CES, differentiation versus distinction in marketing, the importance of authenticity in advertising campaigns, and whether inside marketing staff can make good decisions on behalf of the end-user/consumer.
@HPCpodcast-46: Year in Review 2022
In this year-in-review double-issue episode, we continue what is becoming a tradition, covering some of the notable topics of the past year including: HPC market growth, China, exascale and future of supercomputing, quantum tech, SC22, AI, ACM Turing Award, interconnects, the Nvidia-Arm deal, the Chips and Science Act, HPC software, and fusion energy.
Mktg_Podcast-21: Barbie, ChatGPT, HBS Product v. Financial Engineering
Barbie-the-movie was announced and it is a big, and so-far effective, move. It also offers such a rich set of marketing topics for discussion. Conversational AI, ChatGPT (Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer) exceeded expectations at least for the first few interactions, impressed, disappointed, and scared, all at the same time while becoming a tool that marketing teams started testing and using immediately. A quote on impression data leads to a quick discussion again of the role of the CMO, while an old quote about Harvard Business School leads to product innovation vs. financial engineering.
@HPCpodcast-45: Quantum Networking, Sensing, Computing at Brookhaven National Lab
Kerstin Kleese van Dam, Gabriella Carini, and Meifing Lin of Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) join Shahin and Doug to discuss all things Quantum, covering Quantum Sensing, Quantum Networking, and Quantum Computing. We also get a glimpse of BNL and its global leadership across a wide range of research that it conducts.
Mktg_Podcast-20: Agency Payment Terms, The CMO Role
Physical events are back. Did you say 360-day payment terms? What do companies and candidates get wrong about the CMO role? And the minefield that is marketing data! Join us.
@HPCpodcast-44: SC22 Postview
In this SC22 postview, we go over what happened at the show in Dallas last week. Topics include: the energy and attendance at the show, liquid cooling, PCIe, CXL, AI Chips, Open Standards, Storage, Future of Supercomputing, global players, and yes, where SC23 will be held and what its tagline is!
Mktg_Podcast-19: Rebranding Office, Low-Margin M&A, Brand Loyalty
We start with Microsoft’s Decision to rebrand Office again, this time to Microsoft 365: eliminating “Office” and aligning “365” with the whole company. Retail mergers are next, and interesting because it’s a competitive low margin business. Buying vs. shopping maps well to online vs. in-store and we have a funny story to discuss that next. We end with meat alternatives and how difficult it is to grow in that market, and a big discussion on brand loyalty and brand love.
@HPCpodcast-43: TOP500 at SC22
The 60th edition of the TOP500 list is here, reresenting 30 years of systematic data on the highest performing computer architecture and configurations. Whether or not the list surprises in a big way (you’ll have to look at the GREEN500 list for the surprise this time), it always offers important historical data and valuable “tea leaves” to anticipate the future. We look at the highlights of what changed and what can be expected to change in systems, technologies, and geographies. The Frontier system at Oakridge National Lab continues its commanding lead over the list. Europe shows interesting growth. China continues to not play. AMD shows unsurprising leadership in CPUs and growing presence at the high-end in GPUS while Nvidia retains its comfortable lead in GPUs. Ethernet is a flood that gently rises every time but the interconnect landscape is evolving in important ways. HPCG puts it all in perspective, and the mixed precision benchmark HPL-MxP points to the evolution of HPC and AI as they impact each other.
@HPCpodcast-42: Chris Miller on Chip War
Chris Miller, author of the important and riveting book Chip War, joins us to discuss the crucial nature of the semiconductor industry and and the global competition that has been a part of its history since early days. He is Associate Professor of International History at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Jeane Kirkpatrick Visiting Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Eurasia Director at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Chip War has been shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year award.
We had a long list of topics and questions:
- How did we get here? Was it poor risk management, shear complexity, or too many black swans?
- The impact of political dysfunction, social polarization, and policy inconsistency on waging such wars.
- Might Western values and standards of privacy and individual freedom a competitive disadvantage in the age of AI where raw data superiority can lead to economic superiority?
- Has technology shifted from a situation where it’d be used first in govt/military, then companies, then consumers to now, when it’s the reverse: the consumer market, then companies, then government?
- How much time is there to regain competitiveness? Why did the US not learn its lessons after Japan’s rise in memory chip fabrication technology? Is there something missing in the public-private partnership model in the US?
- Is supercomputing its own race or is it subordinate to the bigger tech issue?
- Was there a lost opportunity to formulate a different, more harmonious, world order?
- What is the impact of current trade barriers? What options do other countries have?
- Several of the leading cast in the book seem to have had challenging personal journeys before they became prominent. Is that a coincidence or a requirement to build a world-leading semiconductor company?! Can it be that it is an effective way to instill the kind of discipline and culture that is required to succeed in the chip business?
And we got through most of them.
Join us for this fascinating discussion.
@HPCpodcast-41: SC Taglines, Trade Wars, Shared Memory Tech
SC22 is approaching and we take stock of the taglines for the show going back to SC14. Do you remember any of them? This years tagline leads us to trade wars and the impact they could have on scientific collaboration. We’ll have an entire show on ship wars next week with a special guest. Also covered is new shared memory capabilities in the cloud.
Mktg_Podcast-18: Musky Texts, Distinctive, Data, Marketing Mix-It-Up
The Twitter deal happened, but rewind the tape to when a trove of text messages was published, providing a glimpse into how people of note in tech discuss deals and strategies. So of course we have to discuss that. Then it’s off to another flare-up about “distinctive vs. differentiated”. Is “distinctive” distinctive or differentiated?! The continuing complexities of marketing data. And how your marketing mix needs to mix it up!
@HPCpodcast-40: Kathy Yelick on Exascale Day, Research, New College
We are delighted to have Kathy Yelick as our special guest to celebrate the Exascale Day (10/18). Dr. Yelick is the Robert S. Pepper Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and the Vice Chancellor for Research at UC Berkeley, and Senior Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Her expansive perspective and expertise led us through a wide ranging discussion including the impact of exascale computing on society, the role of HPC in helping set public and international policy, multi-physics research, advancing software technologies, diversity in HPC, the recent RFI from DOE and what the future might hold, the enormous contributions of UC Berkeley to computing technologies and scientific research and how it stays in the forefront, and proposals for a new college. We also touch on a few of Dr. Yelick’s research projects such as Partitioned Global Address Space (PGAS) and the ExaBiome project and the Berkeley Benchmarking and Optimization (Bebop).
@HPCpodcast-39: Aurora, Intel Day, Linux Wars, Tesla Day
The storied Aurora exascale supercomputer at Argonne National Lab is making progress as blades for the system are reportedly shipping. This was part of the news from the well-crafted and executed Intel Innovation Day. Open source software is a big part of the HPC/AI puzzle and Linux wars are heating up. The Tesla AI day provided some info on what is new with their home-grown AI chip and the associated system.
Mktg_Podcast-17: Case Study, What is Marketing
Acupuncture for “ED”?! Yes, it’s a thing and a case study in this episode. How do you position and message and demand-gen for it? Let’s not lose touch with why marketing is needed. And AMA’s definition marketing wants to be taken apart.
@HPCpodcast-38: Steve Conway on HPC Technology and Policy Trends
We caught up with Steve Conway, well-known HPC executive and analyst formerly with IDC and Hyperion Research, in an engaging and wide ranging discussion. We start with Edge HPC and trends towards massively-distributed massively-heterogeneous computing, which takes us to convergence of HPC and AI, mixed precision spectrum, the importance of simulation, the impact of exascale on general computing, global policies, China and Europe, the impact on scientific collaboration, differences in funding models, and the necessary ingredients to attract top talent.
@HPCpodcast-37: John Gustafson on Feynman, Gustafson’s Law, Posit Format
How did Richard Feynman end up playing the bongo drums? How did a new take on Amdahl’s Law helped propel massively parallel computing and become Gustafson’s Law? And what’s wrong with IEEE 754 number format that the new Posit format fixes? We go to the source as we welcome special guest John Gustafson in another very lively conversation.
@HPCpodcast-36: Adrian Cockcroft on Cloud, HPC Data, ESG, and Netflix
Cool stories and valuable insights in this episode as we get together with Adrian Cockcroft who recently joined OrionX having served as a vice president at AWS for the past several years. We start with Netflix’s move to the cloud, a significant event that helped put cloud computing on the map. Then it’s on to Environment, Sustainability, and Governance (ESG), Formula-1 racing, and cloud configurations and interconnects for HPC and AI workloads.
@HPCpodcast-35: Hot Chips Conference, Quantum Update, Frontier
Highlights from the recent Hot Chips conference with discussions of UCIe and why it could cause a ripple effect in the industry, Moore’s law and 3D packaging, Silicon Photonics, inference in the device or in the data center, silicon for the edge, CXL, and code generation. This is followed by an update on Quantum Computing following two important papers on quantum machine learning and unstructured NP-complete problems. The field continues to be in its infancy while making rapid and significant progress. We end with a review of the dedication ceremonies for the Frontier exascale system. Join us.
Mktg_Podcast-16: Marketing During Recession
Why some companies thrive during recession, or pandemic, or when the going gets tough. The misguided nature of worker productivity score/software. And touching on Ethics of Marketing, a topic we will come back to in future episodes.
Mktg_Podcast-15: Lead Generation
Every company spends money on Lead Generation. Sometimes quite a lot. How do you determine your marketing mix and then match it to the sales cycle and buying behavior? Lots of moving parts here and we go over many of them: PR, SEO, funnel and buying behavior, lead qualification/scoring/nurturing, sales-marketing alignment, and lead flow. As usual, marketing metrics is an important topic and especially quality and meaning of data. We end with a few recommendations.
Mktg_Podcast-14: Nudging, Growth Hacking, Ethics of Marketing
When does “nudging” becoming “nagging”? Behavioral science is on the case with studies (one is critiqued here), on how choice architecture and publication bias impact what works and when. We then move to “Growth Hacking”, discussing what it is and how dangerously close it gets to crossing ethical lines.
@HPCpodcast-34: CXL, CHIPS Act
After several years of experimentation and various consortia, CXL is emerging as the standard for advanced functionality for fabric technologies. We also discuss some of the details of the CHIPS and Science Act that was recently passed in the US.
OrionX Download Podcast: Fintech Update, CryptoSuper500, CBDC, NFT, DeFi, Regulations
The OrionX Download podcast is back with a new episode on the latest in Fintech and Crypto with Shahin Khan and Stephen Perrenod. From Stephen’s newly released CryptoSuper500 report to the latest on CBDCs, NFTs, DeFi, and regulations, the team offers the same realistic perspective and analysis that have made previous episodes so popular.
@HPCpodcast-33: Equity-Diversity-Inclusion in HPC
Our special guest today is Melyssa Fratkin, Industrial Programs Director at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), who also co-chairs Texas Women in HPC with Carolyn Devany, Executive Chair at Data Vortex Technologies. Following her excellent talk at the Dell HPC Community meeting in Austin last week, we caught up with Melyssa to discuss the state of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in HPC and her recommendations on how to accelerate progress in this important area. We ask lots of questions and cover lots of topics, including why this is such a hard problem, the burden of being a pioneer, the impact of political environments and changing laws, how to post jobs that attract a diverse set of candidates, why you need support from the top and across the organization, and more. Join us!
Mktg_Podcast-13: Advertising Effectiveness, Customer Testimonials
Doug points out a glaring gap in a report on advertising effectiveness, as we look for Product and Place in it! Next is customer references and testimonials in B2B and B2C and how to choreograph and manage them. Join us!
@HPCpodcast-32: The Role of Marketing in HPC
One of the most recognized names in strategic marketing and communications in HPC, and an “SC Perennial“, special guest Mike Bernhardt joins Doug and Shahin to discuss the important role that the marketing function plays in HPC. A lot has changed in HPC and a lot has changed in marketing. What should smart organizations do to improve their market presence and build a loyal customer base?
@HPCpodcast-31: ASML Export Control, HPC Software Stack
Following reports that ASML is under diplomatic pressure to regulate the export of its fabrication equipment to China, we discuss market data, other suppliers of fab equipment, and a quick view of some of ASML’s own suppliers. Also covered are the differences between the approach to Exascale in China and the US based on recent research by Hyperion. We end the episode by setting up the vast universe that is the modern HPC software stack as we prepare to cover it systematically over several episodes. We welcome suggestions for guests who can shed light on the state of software in specific layers.
Mktg_Podcast-12: Pricing, and “So, you want to hire a super hero!”
Time to discuss pricing in B2B and B2C and the many parameters that go into it. But first: what happens when a want ad demands so many skills and qualifications that nobody would qualify?
@HPCpodcast-30: DOE RFI with Horst Simon, from System to Ecosystem
Following the Request for Information (RFI) issued last week by the DOE, we caught up with Dr. Horst Simon, Special Advisor to the Laboratory Director at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and co-editor of the TOP500 list since 2000, to take us through how the DOE is gearing up to go beyond Exascale. A very insightful conversation touching on many aspects of what’s next!
Mktg_Podcast-11: Viral Marketing, The Four Ps: Product and Place
Doug and Shahin start with what it takes to go viral and whether it is worth the cost if it doesn’t happen organically. The main topic is the four Ps of marketing and a discussion of product and place in B2B and B2C. Give it a listen and let us know what you think.
@HPCpodcast-29: Up Close and Personal with Frontier, and What Lies Beyond
The HPC User Forum held a special event at Oak Ridge National Laboratory last week, complete with an opportunity to get a viewing of the facilities (not quite a tour) and discussions of Exascale Computing and beyond. Doug Black was on the scene and we discuss what all went down. Of special note is the staffing challenges of HPC sites, and the brewing strategy about how future leadership computing systems would look like. This is an important topic that we have covered with our guests in previous episodes and some patterns are emerging as we continue to analyze the future of supercomputing hardware and software.
@HPCpodcast-28: LaMDA and AI Sentience, Crypto Price Collapse
The conversational AI, LaMDA seems to represent a significant advance in AI, bringing up discussions of AI sentience, consciousness, and personhood. It also underscores the urgency of thoughtful social policies based on ethical and legal frameworks. Also discussed is the state of Crypto and NFT: cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens. Should we look at them as technologies that might find valid use cases, investment vehicles that require close scrutiny, or both? These are very important topics in our times.
@HPCpodcast-27: Thomas Sterling, The State of HPC
Following his always-anticipated and always-insightful closing keynote at the recent ISC conference, we caught up with Prof. Thomas Sterling to discuss the state of HPC. Dr. Sterling is Professor of Intelligent Systems Engineering at the Indiana University (IU) School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, and President and Co-founder of Simultac, a technology company focused on non-von-Neumann memory-based system architectures. Since receiving his Ph.D from MIT as a Hertz Fellowm Dr. Sterling has been a pioneer of parallel processing systems in HPC. His many achievements include the creation in 1994 of the “Beowulf cluster” with Donald Becker at NASA, a system that helped drive the scale-out computing architecture.
Here are the topics and the time-stamp in the podcast when they are discussed:
- 01:23 Supercomputing “Race”
- 04:15 HPC in Society
- 06:40 Climate Change, Controlled Fusion
- 09:00 HPC’s Role in Informing or Helping Set Social Policy
- 10:37 Machine Intelligence
- 15:50 Future of HPC
- 22:25 Beowulf Bash story
- 25:07 Getting into Parallel Processing
- 28:10 Skill-set, Workforce, Software, Accessibility
- 31:09 Performing at the Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center
- 34:68 Leonard Bernstein
- 35:30 ISC22 Closing Keynote
Mktg_Podcast-10: Cost, Complexity, Hiring, Succeeding
Topics today center around the cost and complexity of marketing, hiring marketing talent, and the unique challenges that CMOs face within the C-Suite. Fun times as usual!
@HPCpodcast-26: ISC22 Postview: Frontier, Covid, Vendors, Students
ISC22, the annual International Supercomputing Conference was held last week in Hamburg, Germany, meeting in person after two years. This is a “postview” of the notable developments at this news-rich event.
Mktg_Podcast-9: D2C Retail, Personalization Data, Startups and TV Advertising
Shahin and Doug discuss the value add of retail stores versus direct-to-consumer options, whether or not personalization works, and the potential traps of using data in marketing. They also examine the use of television advertising by startups, and whether hesitancy to use TV ads is about money or a larger push away from the “old” way of doing things.
@HPCpodcast-25: Satoshi Matsuoka, TOP500, Fugaku Supercomputer, Nintendo
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!
@HPCpodcast-24: Fastest AI Supercomputer, Chips Prices, IBM Quantum
Major news since our last (double edition) episode included what’s billed as the fastest AI supercomputer by Google, price hikes on chips by TSMC and Samsung, visualization of a black hole in our own galaxy, and IBM’s ambitious and well-executed quantum computing roadmap. We discuss how an AI supercomputer is different, an unexpected impact of chip shortages and price hikes, what it takes to visualize a black hole, and what IBM’s strategy looks to us from a distance.
Mktg_Podcast-8: Pandemic, WFH, and B2B vs. B2C Marketing
Shahin and Doug talk about the impact of pandemic on financial results, changes in customer buying behavior as a result of work-from-home (WFH) and depending on demographics, and segue into the differences between B2B and B2C marketing.
@HPCpodcast-23: ACM Turing Award Winner Jack Dongarra
We been fortunate to host some of the most distinguished scientists and technologists in the world who have shaped supercomputing as they have advanced human knowledge. Today we welcome Jack Dongarra who was recently honored by the ACM Turing Award for “Pioneering Concepts and Methods Which Resulted in World-Changing Computations”.
Jack Dongarra is a leader in supercomputing technologies, parallel programming tools and technologies, and linear algebra and numerical algorithms. He holds appointments at the University of Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and the University of Manchester, and is the recipient of several awards and honors.
In a wide ranging discussion, we cover the Turing Award, TOP500, the state of HPC benchmarks, China’s Exascale systems, and future directions in algorithms. We also talk about future of supercomputing and AI systems, reminisce about a period where a proliferation of system architectures provides a fertile ground for experimentation, and discuss whether we are entering a similar era now. This is another episode you’d want to listen to more than once!
Mktg_Podcast-7: Gadgets, Advertising, Funnel, Insight
Episode 7 of the Marketing Podcast covers topics ranging from the usefulness of gadgets and “mean time to garage sale”, to advertising, marketing mix, and conversion factors in a funnel, and depth of knowledge.
@HPCpodcast-22: China Exascale, Twitter in play, Tech Society
New research paper puts China’s Exascale systems back in the news. And impending acquisition of Twitter leads to a discussion about the positive impact and policy challenges of our tech society.
@HPCpodcast-21: HPC Storage with Gary Grider of LANL
Another must-listen episode, covering HPC storage with Gary Grider, leader of the high performance computing division of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and a leading light of advanced storage solutions for four decades. Gary has led, driven, helped fund, instigated, influenced, or otherwise significantly touched nearly every storage technology out there, from Lustre to Burst Buffers to Ceph (software-defined object storage) to Computational Storage to the Grand Unified File Index GUFI and on and on. Among the topics discussed: how storage is changing with AI, and what is next in HPC storage.
Top of the news includes quantum computing metrics and Quantiniuum passing Quantum Volume of 4096, investigating war crimes with computational methods and open source intelligence, funding opportunity for Mathematical Multifaceted Integrated Capability Centers, and TSMC’s quarterly revenues.
@HPCpodcast-20: New Segment Top-of-the-News, Storage
A new segment, Top of The News, covers top HPC stories, this time Federal funding for PsiQuantum and Global Foundries, AMD’s proposed acquisition of Pensando, and Fujitsu’s cloud offerings. The main topic is storage, which we will cover in multiple episodes going forward, including a very special guest next week. This week we discuss Computational Storage, Erasure Coding, Storage-Class Memory, and Data-Centric AI.
Mktg_Podcast-6: April Fools Day, Signals and Psychology, JTBD
Join in another lively episode as we discuss why April Fools’ Day is more challenging nowadays, how the potato earned its own viral moment, Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) and other marketing recipes, and the importance of leaving room for happy accidents when pursuing innovation.
@HPCpodcast-19: ORNL’s Jeff Nichols on Frontier Exascale, Past, Future
Join us as we get a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of how the Frontier supercomputer came to be, how it was built in the middle of a pandemic, and how it is going through its paces. Frontier is a $600 million 30 MW supercomputer, comprised of 50-60 million parts in 100+ cabinets, deployed at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) by HPE using AMD CPUs and GPUs. It is slated to be the United States’ first exascale computing resource with a target performance of about 1.5 exaFLOPS in double-precision (64-bit) arithmetic.
Our special guest, Dr. Jeff Nichols, oversees the Department of Energy’s National Center for Computational Sciences, and as such he has been a key figure in the installation of breakthrough supercomputers such as Titan, Summit, and now Frontier. Dr. Nichols is Associate Laboratory Director for Oak Ridge National Lab’s Computing and Computational Sciences organization. He has been in that position since April 2009. His appearance today is something of a valedictory because he plans to retire this year after 20 years at Oak Ridge. We discuss the past and future of supercomputing as well as the current state of the Frontier supercomputer.
@HPCpodcast-18: GTC22, Groundbreaking Advances, and Geopolitics
Shahin and Doug go over what was unveiled at the NVIDIA GTC22 conference, vendor strategies, groundbreaking advances in the industry, and the geopolitics of semiconductors.
Mktg_Podcast-5: Logos, Verbal Real Estate, Employment Marketing, Cost of Metrics
A lively discussion about 1) the most effective logos, branding and strategy, and the importance of verbal real estate; 2) recruitment marketing and how employee/employer dynamics are shifting; and 3) the high cost of metrics and how projects can turn into products.
@HPCpodcast-17: American Competitiveness and Future of Supercomputing, with Dan Reed
In recently published Reinventing High Performance Computing: Challenges and Opportunities, Daniel Reed, Dennis Gannon, and Jack Dongarra, three of the most celebrated thought leaders and luminaries of supercomputing have started an important discussion about the future of HPC and its impact on American competitiveness. Readers of this site would know that those topics have played a big role in driving our research agenda at OrionX and have helped shape our thinking. So we are very fortunate to welcome Dan Reed as a special guest of the @HPCpodcast to go a level deeper. Dan is Presidential Professor of Computational Science, and Professor of Computer Science and Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Utah.
Mktg_Podcast-4: Digital Retail, Metaverse, Outsourcing
We start with the news of Amazon closing their physical retail (not grocery) stores and the interplay between physical and digital commerce, which leads us to emerging applications of the Metaverse and the difference between the promise of a tech trend and the reality of today’s use cases. We end with a discussion of outsourcing and its impact on business profits and identity.
@HPCpodcast-16: AI in Science, a Conversation with Rick Stevens of ANL (part 2)
This is part 2 of a special 2-episode discussion of AI in Science with Rick Stevens, Associate Laboratory Director and leader of Exascale Computing Initiative at Argonne National Laboratory and Professor at University of Chicago. In addition to the new ways AI can help advance science, we also discuss ethics, bias, robustness, security,and explainability of AI, and whether AI can replace scientists. We end with a snapshot of Quantum Information Science (QIS), a promising area albeit in its earlier stages of development compared to AI.
@HPCpodcast-15: AI in Science, a Conversation with Rick Stevens of ANL (part 1)
A special 2-episode discussion of AI in Science with Rick Stevens, Associate Laboratory Director and leader of Exascale Computing Initiative at Argonne National Laboratory and Professor at University of Chicago. Rick also led a series of Town Halls during 2019 focused on the relevance and applications of AI in scientific research. Held at Argonne, Oak Ridge, and Berkeley National Laboratories, the events were attended by over 1,000 scientists and engineers. This is part 1 of our conversation. Join us.
Mktg_Podcast-3: Direct-to-Consumer, Distinctiveness, Color Management
We discuss the challenges of “Direct to Consumer” marketing and its impact on Go-to-Market planning. From there, we go to branding and product advantage, covering differentiation vs. distinctiveness as well as the role of marketing, and we end this episode with the joys and complexities of color management, especially in the digital age. Join us!
@HPCpodcast-14: Cyberwarfare in the Age of AI and HPC
Special guest Richard Stiennon, research analyst and author of Security Yearbook 2021, joins Shahin and Doug to discuss the state of advanced cyberwarfare involving AI and supercomputing, and its potential role in the war in Ukraine.
@HPCpodcast-13: Intel, AMD, Nvidia
On the occasion of Intel’s analyst day and the 1st anniversary of Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, Shahin and Doug discuss the global recognition of chips as engines of economic growth, supply issues, and the competitive landscape. Topics include the growing importance of Washington and EU, Intel’s renewed vigor and promise, AMD’s rapid ascend, Nvidia’s strong posotion, and the many other chip players vying for position.
@HPCpodcast-12: Framework for Top-10 Tech Trends
Web3, IoT/Edge, AI, HPC, Blockchain, Cryptocurrencies, GPUs and Quantum, Cyber Risk, 5G, and BioTech point to opportunities and threats. Why are there so many big technology trends right now? Doug and Shahin discuss a framework to help make sense of why these trends point to important changes, how these trends are related, and what they mean individually and together.
Mktg_Podcast-2: Positioning is Poetry, Recruitment Marketing, Brand Purpose
Positioning is poetry! Is “recruitment marketing” a new branch? When is brand purpose a driver of business? Is marketing generic or do you need product depth? Why is bad marketing such a common topic in marketing discussions? Did you say “removed negative reviews”? Join in!
@HPCpodcast-11: HPC Cloud Growth, Decision Parameters
HPC Cloud continues to grow rapidly as cloud providers pursue HPC workloads and build a variety of hardware configurations to attract them, and as Edge and Cloud help each other grow. We discuss the many dimensions of the decision to use public clouds for HPC.
Mktg_Podcast-1: Wordle, Peloton, TikTok, Competition
Wordle (recorded before it got acquired), marketing rants on Twitter, Peloton, Competitive Advantage, TikTok, and why CMOs are like radioactive material!
What started as a Marketing Meetup has now morphed into a 15-20 minute Mktg_Podcast. Join Shahin Khan and Doug Garnett (and occasional guests) as they discuss news and happenings in the world of marketing, from the board room to customer programs. Give it a listen!
@HPCpodcast-10: HPC Market Size – “Exceptional Growth in 2021”
Doug Black and Shahin Khan are joined by Hyperion Research CEO Earl Joseph to discuss Hyperion’s market findings. Topics include traditional HPC, AI, Cloud, the impact of Covid, industry and global perspective, and what to expect in the future.
@HPCpodcast-9: Quantum Computing Status and Investments
In episode 9 of the @HPCPodcast, we cover the recent wave of news about quantum computing: melding of quantum & classical computing, error correction, financial & investment announcements, M&A and partnerships, and the connection between quantum computing and HPC.
@HPCpodcast-8: Intel Points to Zettascale in 2027
After SC21, Patrick Kennedy of Serve the Home online publication got quite the scoop, Raja’s Chip Notes Lay Out Intel’s Path to Zettascale, when he met with Raja Koduri, SVP and GM of Intel’s Accelerated Computing Systems and Graphics (AXG) Group, to discuss Zettascale projections and plans, stipulating a 2027 timeframe. Is that realistic when Exascale has not quite been made official? Tune in and let us know what you think.
@HPCpodcast-7: China, TSMC, and War Games
In this week’s episode of the @HPCPodcast, Doug Black and Shahin Khan discuss how global competition around advanced technologies has turned geo-politics into “techno-politics” and techno-nationalism. What instigated the discussion this time is a recently published and widely-read academic paper Chip Geopolitics: If China Invades, Make Taiwan ‘Unwantable’ by Destroying TSMC.
@HPCpodcast-6: Year in Review 2021
From COVID to Climate Change, Edge to Exascale, and AI to Autonomy, 2021 was an impactful year for HPC and Supercomputing, leading some of the most notable global technology advances and some of the most exciting business opportunities of our time. This episode is a lightning “year in review 2021” as we look back and look forward. Join us!
@HPCpodcat-5: Quantum Computing Market Size
Special guest Bob Sornesen of Hyperion Research joins the crew to share the results of his international study to track down the size of the Quantum Computing market. Bob unveiled these results at the Q2B-21 conference last week.
@HPCpodcast-4: Composable Disaggregated Infrastructure (CDI)
Composable Disaggregated Infrastructure (CDI) is emerging as good way to pool, share, and flex resources to increase utilization. We discuss what makes CDI effective as we touch on the status of the Nvidia-Arm deal and the new Graviton-3 CPU from AWS. Give this episode a listen and remember to tweet us with questions you’d like answered on the podcast.
@HPCpodcast-3: Metaverse and HPC
Shahin Khan and Doug Black discuss the Metaverse, its consumer and industrial uses, competition for data, avatars and more realistic digital twins, commerce in the metaverse, and why so many parts of it, from immersive graphics and gaming to physics based simulation and 5G, include computationally intensive components. Give it a listen and let us know what you think.
Crypto Mining Rankings, NFT, CBDC
Which coins actually use the “Proof of Work” algorithms, the “mining” process, and how do they rank? Why CBDCs, why not just stablecoins? What are NFTs, what is real? Stephen Perrenod and Shahin Khan discuss these topics and a few more FUD items left-over from the last podcast. The latest CryptoSuper500 list includes the rankings and much else so be sure to check it out. And join in!
@HPCpodcast-2: TOP500 at SC21
TOP500 at SC21 was highly anticipated but failed to ignite. Rumored high-end systems opted not to play while entering the conversation anyway. However, the list is about more than the TOP10 or whether there are systems that should be there and those that should not. Looking at the whole list, we saw a few surprises.
@HPCpodcast-1: HPC and AI Chips and Accelerators
Welcome to the @HPCpodcast where Shahin Khan and Doug Black discuss supercomputing technologies and the applications, markets, and policies that shape them. In this inaugural episode we cover HPC and AI chips and accelerators, startups, and unicorns, topics that are sure to reappear frequently.
Cryptocurrency FUD, Fact or Fiction?
There is recurring cryptocurrency FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt), usually leveled at Bitcoin but also cryptocurrencies in general. Steve Perrenod and Shahin Khan go over the list to demystify! On the menu: intrinsic value, criminal activities, energy usage, slow transactions, high fees, China’s significant mining capacity and then banning mining, dependence on electricity and internet.
The usual disclaimer: what you hear is not, and is not intended to be, financial or legal advice.
Cryptocurrency State of the Market and Short History
What’s behind Bitcoin’s soaring prices? Steve Perrenod and Shahin Khan look at the Cryptocurrency market and its history over the past decade. Here in one place, they run through and explain the major new innovations in crypto and take stock of their progress.
The usual disclaimer: what you hear is not, and is not intended to be, financial or legal advice.
Edge Computing, with Tensor Networks CTO
In this era of “Too Much Data”, it is imperative for all organizations to understand and have a plan for Edge Computing. We discuss it all with Bill Walker, another old colleague from Sun Microsystems who is Chief Technology Officer for Edge Computing pioneer Tensor Networks .
Edge Computing is important for many reasons, not least because pretty much all the raw data will originate from outside the cloud, and the vast majority of it will be processed outside the cloud.
Edge Computing is also important because it combines all of the trends that we track at OrionX that enable Digital Transformation: IoT as the fountain of data, 5G as the way data gets transmitted, HPC and AI as the way we make sense of data, Blockchain as an important model for transactions, Cryptocurrencies as the way value is assigned and transferred, and accelerator technologies that make it all possible within an economic envelope.
Let’s join the conversation.
RISC-V CTO on Open Source Chips and Use Cases
Mark Himelstein, CTO of RISC-V joins us to discuss what we think will be a very important part of the information technology landscape. RISC-V has cracked the code on taking an open source community approach to chip design. We can expect to see it everywhere from embedded IoT, to communication fabrics, storage, AI, HPC, accelerators, and more. Initially created at the University of California at Berkeley, RISC-V has grown over the past 10 years to a position of serious prominence. It is clear that it will remain important in the coming decades.
What is 5G and Why is it a Big Deal?
This is probably one of the best discussions anywhere about what 5G is and why it is a big deal. Join Walt Maclay, president of Voler Systems, in a conversation with Shahin Khan as they go over what 5G technology promises: speed, low latency, high density in terms of number of devices per square kilometer, better precision for positioning and location tracking, low power, high coverage, and significant back-end efficiencies, including new classes of services. On the other hand, you’re not going to get all of the above at the same time, or if you do, it’s going to be a very special situation. And then there are lingering questions about its health effects which will likely.
Crypto Exchange and Internet of Value
Nikolaj Vestorp, co-founder of crypto exchange MarketKoin joins the OrionX team to discuss the impact of new technologies on global financial markets. MarketKoin is a multi-purpose platform for exchanging digital assets based on cryptocurrencies. It started in Indonesia which gives it a truly global perspective on everything from regulations and policy to customer needs and trends.
Quantum Machine Learning (QML)
The OrionX Research team welcomes special guest Dr. Max Henderson of Rigetti Computing to discuss the intersection of AI and Quantum Computing. Topics of discussion include reformulation, feature extraction, linear solvers, optimization, programming languages and development environments, quantum inspired algorithms, underlying technologies for various quantum computers, and short- and mid-term outlook for AI and quantum computing.
State of the Market: Crypto/Blockchain, Quantum Computing
The OrionX Research team is back with Stephen, Shahin, and Dan going over the state of the market in Cryptocurrency, Blockchain, and Quantum Computing.
SC17 A Postview of the Supercomputing-17 Conference
Shahin and Dan review some of the most important technology advances out there, as seen at the SC17 conference. They discuss changes to the TOP500, New server chips (POWER and ARM), Liquid Cooling, and Quantum Computing. Also discussed: Y2Q, Quantum Supremacy, and Quantum-Safe cryptography.
Cost of Data and How to Avoid Data Loss
Brian Hellman from LINBIT joins as the guest of Dan Olds and Shahin Khan to discuss our recent blog and research paper, The Cost of Data Loss and How to Avoid It. The research goes beyond traditional “outage” of resources and lookins at the value of the data that you are not collecting when there is downtime. In this podcast, the team looks at consequences of data loss, cost categories of data, and available solutions to prevent data loss.
Artificial Intelligence Customer Sentiment – OrionX Industry Survey
Co-hosts Dan Olds and Shahin Khan review the results of a recent “Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning” survey that OrionX conducted with over 300 high tech, industrial and commercial companies. See the data and find out how these trends may impact organizations’ AI strategies.
Cryptocurrencies, Blockchain, and Bitcoin, part 3
Stephen Perrenod joins Shahin and Dan to make sense of Cryptocurrency/Blockchain/Bitcoin. They complete the discussion of a transaction’s journey, which they started in the last episode, and answer the common question: “can I separate Blockchain from Bitcoin?” This is the 3rd and final episode of a series that focuses on a deeper discussion of the basics of Blockchain technology.
Cryptocurrencies, Blockchain, and Bitcoin, part 2
We go through a transaction’s journey, explaining hash functions and public key cryptography along the way.
Cryptocurrencies, Blockchain, and Bitcoin, part 1
Stephen Perrenod joins Shahin and Dan to make sense of Cryptocurrency/Blockchain/Bitcoin. In this first installment, they start at the beginning: the original Satoshi Nakamoto paper that started it all.
What is new in the High Performance Interconnect (HPI) market?
Dan and Shahin revisit the high end of the networking market, discuss what’s new, how HPI technologies stack up, and unveil the OrionX rankings of key technologies based on market, customer, and product attributes. Four OrionX research papers on this topic are available here.
Does Oracle have the right Cloud Strategy?
David Simmons of Oracle and Peter ffoulkes of OrionX are Dan’s guests as they discuss Oracle’s strategy for Cloud in Enterprise IT. Dan Olds and Peter ffoulkes discuss the OrionX blog that instigated this episode.
Enterprise-HPC Industry Survey
In this inaugural podcast, co-hosts Dan Olds and Shahin Khan review the results of a recent “Enterprise HPC” data center survey that OrionX conducted with over 150 high tech, industrial and commercial companies. See the data and find out how these trends may impact organizations’ data center strategies.
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