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Free HPC secrets! Your key to success!

The Council on Competitiveness recently released Solve. The Exascale Effect: the Benefits of Supercomputing Investment for U.S. Industry (pdf). As the federal government pursues exascale computing to achieve national security and science missions, Solve examines how U.S.-based companies also benefit from leading edge computation and new technologies first funded by government.

The report also explores what actions are likely to unleash greater industrial competitiveness. Some of the key findings are:

  1. More than one-third of U.S. industry representatives surveyed claim their most demanding high performance computing (HPC) applications could utilize 1,000-fold increases in computing capability over the next five years;
  2. Software scalability is the #1 most significant limiting factor to achieve the next 10-fold improvement in performance, and it is the #2 most significant limiting factor to reach a 1,000-fold improvement;
  3. Industry respondents recognize that government investment in leading-edge HPC benefits their companies and industries. An overwhelming majority of respondents believe HPC is a matter of competitive survival and is critical to the future direction of their businesses. However, many respondents also note that the links between government and industry need to be strengthened.

The report was developed as part of work supported by the Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research within the U.S. Department of Energy's, Office of Science. The Council engaged Intersect360 Research to interview more than 100 HPC-using companies in industries such as manufacturing, energy, finance, pharmaceuticals and entertainment. The interviews form the basis of Solve.

A large majority (62%) of industry respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “Past government investments in new generations of supercomputing have had a benefit on your company/industry.” Only four percent disagreed with the statement, demonstrating a 15-to-1 ratio of recognizing the value of government leadership.

The report also finds that companies across sectors rely on several software approaches to achieve their goals. U.S.-based firms indicate that their software use is split roughly in equal shares between in-house code, open-source software, and offerings from independent software vendors. The Council on Competitiveness, therefore, urges improved partnerships and programs that engage industry, academia, and the national laboratories to strengthen each software approach. Solve also recommends renewed efforts to help firms not using HPC to integrate that capability into their workflow.

Many readers are not aware of the treasure trove of previous HPC reports that can be found on the Council's website! In addition, check out the Cluster Monkey Polls and Surveys for other reports and poll results.

About the Council on Competitiveness

The Council on Competitiveness is the only group of corporate CEOs, university presidents, labor leaders and directors of national laboratories committed to the future prosperity of all Americans and enhanced U.S. competitiveness in the global economy through the creation of high-value economic activity in the United States. The Council is a non-partisan and non-governmental organization. For more information, see the Council's website and a full list of publications at http://www.compete.org.