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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.
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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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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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