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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.
HPC, AI
Join Shahin Khan and Doug Black in their weekly discussion of key technology trends that drive high performance computing, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing.
Podcasts
@HPCpodcast-77: Adrian Cockcroft on Future Architectures
Adrian Cockcroft joins us again after SC23 to discuss TOP500 trends, the AI-HPC crossover, liquid cooling, chiplets, and the emergence of UCIe and CXL advancements. Be sure to listen to previous episodes with Adrian; Episode 36 on HPC in cloud and sustainability data and Episode 55 on decarbonization and ESG.
HPC News Bytes – 20231127
– NVIDIA Ethernet push with Dell, HPE, Lenovo
– Research and Engineering Studio on AWS
– Latest on Chinese exascale
– HPC-Quantum integration: Riken’s Fugaku + NTT Ei and Simulated systems
HPC News Bytes – 20231120
– SC23 stats
– Exascale update and future
– Raft of new chips
– Quantum Village at SC23
– UCIe, PCIe, Ultra Ethernet
@HPCpodcast-76: TOP500 at SC23
We provide details and our analysis of the latest TOP500 list of the most powerful supercomputers in the world. This round sees quite a shake-up in the top 10 and reveals interesting changes in the market.
HPC News Bytes – 20231113
– SC23 Starts, TOP500 later today
– Storage at Scale, DAOS, Aurora, Linux Foundation
– Sandia National Lab and DDN
– TSMC 1.4nm, SMIC financials
@HPCpodcast-75: Rick Stevens, Mike Papka – Argonne National Lab (ANL)
As SC23 approaches, we were fortunate to catch up with Rick Stevens and Mike Papka of Argonne National Lab for a wide ranging discussion. In addition to an update on the Aurora supercomputer and TOP500, we also discuss the need and challenged of building a national exascale capability, developing teams and bench strength, the risks and opportunities of AI for science and society, the trend towards integrated research infrastructure (IRI), and what’s next for the exascale initiative. We’d like to encourage you to also listen to episodes 15 and 16 of this podcast where we discuss AI in science with prof. Stevens.
Rick Stevens is Argonne’s Associate Laboratory Director for the Computing, Environment and Life Sciences (CELS) Directorate and an Argonne Distinguished Fellow. He is also a Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago. He was previously leader of Exascale Computing Initiative at Argonne.
Michael Papka is a senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory where he is also deputy associate laboratory director for Computing, Environment and Life Sciences (CELS) and division director of the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF).
@HPCpodcast-74: Karl Freund, AI Chips
Karl Freund, founder and principal analyst at Cambrian-AI Research joins us to discuss the, well, “Cambrian explosion” that we are witnessing in AI chips, the general state of the AI semiconductor market, and the competitive landscape in deep learning, inference, and software infrastructure in support of AI. Karl has a deep background in HPC and AI, having served in executive roles at Cray, IBM, AMD, and Calxeda, a pioneer of Arm-based system-on-chip (SoC) for servers. Karl is a frequent contributor to Forbes.
HPC News Bytes – 20231106
– UK Summit on AI, AI Supercomputers in the UK
– US Presidential Executive Order on AI
– Peter Ungaro on full episode of @HPCpodcast
– Intersect360 Market Update
@HPCpodcast-73: Peter Ungaro – Industry View
In this episode of Industry View, we are delighted to have a rare opportunity to catch up with none other than Pete Ungaro, long time luminary and admired leader in HPC/AI. Mr. Ungaro is a globally recognized technology executive, among the “40 under 40” by Corporate Leader Magazine in 2008, and CEO of the year by Seattle Business Monthly for the year 2006. He was most recently SVP/GM of High Performance Computing (HPC), Mission Critical Systems (MCS), and HPE Labs at HPE. Previously, he was president and CEO of Cray Inc. until its acquisition by HPE. Prior to joining Cray in 2003, Mr. Ungaro served as Vice President of Worldwide Deep Computing Sales for IBM.
In this episode of Industry View, we cover the Cray journey as it became the clear winner in exascale systems, the HPE acquisition, the challenges of delivering a new extreme-scale system during COVID, a look at HPC software, storage, power and cooling, and quantum computing, the opportunities and challenges of AI, and the geopolitics of high tech.

HPC News Bytes – 20231204
– Why would The New Yorker cover HPC technologies?
– Open Benchmark Council’s TOP100 lists
– Intel as one of the largest customers of TSMC’s high-end fab?
– Digital Twins for hyropower at ORNL and PNNL