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.
Podcasts
@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-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!