High-performance computing world market

Why ekzaflopny calculations are so important?

Systems capable to reach performance in 1 quintillion (or ¹⁰¹⁸) transactions with a floating comma per second – in one thousand times are more productive, than petaflopny (or 1015) systems, and are probably capable to solve the greatest world scientific problems.

Market estimates

2018

the Market of services of lease of high-end servers reached $6.28 billion

The volume of the world market of services of lease of high-end servers in 2018 reached $6.28 billion, data of ResearchAndMarkets analytical company demonstrate. It is about services, called "HPC as service".

Experts did not specify dynamics in the market in comparison with 2017, but assured that the considered market is on rise. It is emphasized that growth of the market of high-performance computing is caused by fast evolution of technologies, such as 3D - images, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things and also fast increase in volume of the analyzed data. Besides, the popularity of high-performance computing grows in service quality as they allow to process data in real time for the analysis of trends of the market, testing of new products and broadcast of sports events on the air.

The volume of the world market of services of lease of high-end servers in 2018 reached $6.28 billion

It is expected that the governments enter more and more initiatives for general digitalization, and this trend also positively affects growth of the high-performance computing provided in a service format, around the world. Analysts assume that the high prevalence of cloud computing in emerging countries will also become the important environment for development of services of lease of high-end servers.

High-performance computing (HPC) is generally made on powerful servers or supercomputers which can execute quadrillions of calculations per second. Such servers need more than one thousand in parallel the working computing nodes. The service of lease of similar servers allows to use the corresponding applications in a cloud environment, providing access on demand to necessary components.

According to the research provided on the website ResearchAndMarkets.com by 2026 the market of services "HPC as service". can grow to $17 billion. The Segment of public clouds dominated in the world market of high-performance computing in 2018, and it is expected that it will bring the greatest income in the future. The highest growth rates of expenses on high-performance computing in 2018 were observed in health care.^[1]

Growth of the market of HPC-servers by 15.6% to $13.7 billion

The volume of global market of high-end servers (HPC) in 2018 reached $13.7 billion, having increased by 15.6% of rather previous year. Such data published on April 9, 2019 analysts of Hyperion Research.

They note that sales of powerful servers in the world were record and more, than experts ($13 billion) expected. According to the senior vice president for researches of Hyperion Research Steve Conway, the splash in the market happened thanks to "a crucial role of HPC in researches of artificial intelligence and to the growing implementation of HPC-servers in corporate data centers for acceleration of business operations". The CEO of Hyperion Research Earl Joseph also connected rise with steady growth of the American and global economy.

The most part of demand for HPC-solutions is the share of a segment of supercomputers to which the equipment worth more than $500 thousand belongs. In 2018 the expenses on such systems on a global scale made $5.4 billion.

Specialists select three more categories of HPC-systems: Divisional (the servers servicing divisions of the companies; the price — from $250 thousand to $500 thousand), Departmental (for departments; $100-250 thousand) and Workgroup (for the working groups; to $100 thousand). Volumes of these segments at the end of 2018 were equal $2.5 billion, $3.9 billion and $2 billion respectively.

The largest producers of HPC-servers given to Hyperion Research

The leader of the considered market analysts called HP company which in 2018 high-end servers earned $4.77 billion from implementation that corresponds to nearly 35% in a total amount of the market. Dell and IBM also got to the three of the largest producers.

Researchers expect that the market of servers for high-performance computing will grow for 7.8% a year and will reach $20 billion by 2023.^[2]

Plans of Europe

In February, 2012 the European Commission expressed the intention to double investments into development of eksaflopsny calculations - from €630 million to €1.2 billion ($1.58 billion). According to this statement, financing will be performed despite introduction of the European states of drastic measures by the governments on prevention of defaults.

Recently as well the White House published the budget for 2013 where the third year in a row very modest funds for research and development of these technologies are provided. In 2011 the U.S. Department of Energy asked nearly $91 million for financing of eksaflopsny developments of 2012, and received $73.4 million However, in comparison with $28.2 million in previous year it after all is more.

In the budget-2013 offered for consideration of the Congress, the White House requested $89.5 million for eksaflopa. A part of means which the USA spends for eksaflopsny researches are spent also from other budget items of the Ministry of Energy and also Ministry of Defence.

Such investment volume from the USA, according to the analyst of IDCErla Earl Joseph, is insignificant for the program which billions of dollars can be required. While China in the plans moves ahead and has financial resources, scientific and technology talents to achieve progress in calculations of scale eksaflops.

According to the analyst, Europeans already should be disturbed concerning progress of China in this market. "China will simply bury them, - Joseph told, speaking about Europe. – But at such level of investments they have a chance to keep and, perhaps, to raise the head in this game".

The main part of the American money is intended for basic researches in the field of creation of new types of processors, memory, operating systems and compilers. These research achievements, according to Joseph, can be used, generally for commercial purposes.

The Research Firm IDC advising the authorities of Europe concerning technologies of high-performance computing recommended to the European Union leaders to focus on development of application using the eksaflopsny systems and to focus attention on developments of the equipment less.

Europeans, as well as Chinese, see advantages in development of technologies eksaflops which include construction of systems in one thousand times more powerful, than acting today. The systems of eksaflopsny calculations can reach ^{1 trillion (1018)} transactions with a floating comma per second.

But the similar systems "create a set of difficult questions", said in the report European the commission which accompanied the decision on financing. Among these problems need of 100-fold decrease in energy consumption and development of new programming models. If Europe and China are able to solve them, then they will have a chance - to compete with the present market leader, the USA, in the field of high-performance computing.

Speaking about the European investments, the vice president of European Commission Neelie Crous (Neelie Kroes) responsible for this initiative noted in the statement that "for the European industry and growth of number of jobs in Europe the high-performance computing is one of the major driving factors". "We should invest in this sphere because we are not able to afford to concede to competitors", - she said.

Meanwhile the scientific community of high-performance computing of the USA expresses concern about absence at the government of the country of the perspective plan of financing of this research and development. Jack Dongarra, the scientist of Tennessee university who is taking part in creation of TOP-500 list of supercomputers of the world welcomes efforts of Europe. "The friendly competition helps advance", - he emphasized.

Lag of the USA

Around the world there is a race for creation of supercomputers of the next generation, however efforts of the USA as of the beginning of 2012 probably came to a standstill. China and Europe, in particular, move ahead with the programs, Japan gains steam more and more.

You should not forget also about success of the Russian developers in the field of high-performance computing. In March, 2011 in the Sarov nuclear center the 1 supercomputer Pflops which in world ranking TOP-500 applies for the 12th post successfully passed tests, and the CEO of T-Platforms company Vsevolod Opanasenko got to ten the most influential people of the supercomputer industry according to the largest industry izlaniya HPCwire.

The U.S. Government, meanwhile, still did not put the development plan for eksaflopny calculations in action, Patrick Thibodeau, the journalist-analyst of the Computerworld edition considers.

According to him, these programs concern not only constructions of supercomputers. Development of platforms of eksaflopny calculations is start to appearance of new generations of processors, new storage systems and network technologies. Breaks in these areas in other countries can lead to emergence of new problems with technology domination of the USA.

Five reasons leading the USA to danger of a failure in the field of high-performance computing according to Patrick Tibodo.

The USA has no development plan for eksaflopny calculations

The project for development of high-performance computing of this kind can cost the USA billions of dollars. Europe estimated own efforts on development of the eksaflopny project at €3.5 billion ($4.724 billion) more than in ten years. China will be able to invest unimaginable quantity of money in the developments. In 2008 in China there were 15 systems presented in TOP-500 list of the most productive systems in the world. In the latest version of this list released in November, 2011 74 systems of the Chinese production or 14.8% of their total quantity in the world appear already.

By the USA financing of large projects, such as the planned IBM computer for Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Livermore continues 20 (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) a petaflop which will appear within the next year. This system can return the USA for the first line of the list again. However, in spite of the fact that occurs in Europe or China now, the USA still did not define the budget for development of this program.

Error will consider what the USA will win a race for eksaflopy

Though efforts on development of the Chinese supercomputers draw a lot of attention, the Europeans concentrated on development of technology infrastructure will be able to compete with the USA.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) with a circular tunnel on the French and Swiss borders, of 16.8 miles, turns Europe into the world center of physical researches of high energy. It can mean that physics which once wanted to work in the USA perhaps, will find more advantageous conditions in Europe and will be able to assist in creation of the new industry of production in this region.

The USA once had plans for construction of a 54-mile tunnel of a supercollider in Texas, but the congress delayed financing and threw partially implemented project after at the end of 1980 the planned expenses with $5 billion grew k1993 to year to $11 billion. The European countries also jointly work in creation of own system of global satellite positioning of Galileo. This project costs about $20 billion.

LHC and Galileo show that the countries of Europe are ready to integrate the resources and to work together in the technology sphere. They see a similar possibility of actions in eksaflopny calculations, especially in software development.

In the October report the working group European Exascale Software Initiative reported that the USA, Europe, China and Japan - all these countries have the potential for creation of the first eksaflopny system.

To an eksaflop the way opening a door for looking for is unknown

Though the USA has no development plan for the program of superproductive calculations, there are already some requirements to such system. It should be ready by 2019-2020 and more than 20 MW of the electric power cannot consume that it is not enough for the system which is possibly equipped with millions of processors.

The need for systems with reduced level of consumption of energy generated new approaches to their development. Alex Ramirez, the head of group of researches of computer architecture in the center of supercomputers of Barcelona, told that the project within which the center uses ARM processors and graphic processors of Nvidia shows a possibility of creation of a high-performance computing cluster on the basis of architecture of ARM.

Within the project the complete stack of the software for this cluster is also created. According to him, ahead still a large number of problems, connected, generally with need of creation of software for work in the environment different from servers and mobile calculations. "Human efforts and financial investments into development of this software will be considerable", - he added.

If does not head the USA eksaflop, then what to speak about the beginning of planning zettaflop?

The first-year student on information science already should know today about a four-year way to an eksaflopny system. By then, when it will complete the thesis, he will already discuss a zettaflopny ⁽¹⁰²¹⁾ system, in one thousand times more powerful. If high-performance computing saves a historical picture of the development, emergence of the zettaflopny systems can be expected about 2030. However nobody knows how such system can look, as well as that is whether it is possible in general. A system of this kind can demand absolutely new approaches, such as quantum computings.

The White House declared unwillingness to be involved in "arms race" in a question of creation of more and more fast computers, and a year ago in the report warned that the emphasis on speed "can distract resources from the basic researches aimed at the development of essentially new approaches to high-performance computing which would help us to overtake, finally, other countries". But the USA already in a computing race, wants they that or not. For development of technology which will overtake other countries the USA needs steady financing of basic researches, as well as creation of the eksaflopny systems.

The USA was not explained that is a rate in this game

The president Barack Obama became the first U.S. President mentioning eksaflopny calculations, but he did not explain the potential of these systems. Supercomputers can help scientists with creation of models of atomic level, cells of the person and how they are attacked by a virus. They can be used for modeling of earthquakes and search of methods of their predictions and also design of the structures able them to resist. In the industry all of them are more often used for creation of products, their testing in virtual environments.

Any can use supercomputers representable to the person in the way. At the same time, the more power of systems, the more their calculation capacities and the more so exact sciences. Today the USA dominates in the market of calculations. About 45% of the systems entering in TOP-500 fall to the share of one IBM, it is followed by HP from shares in 28%. About 53% of the most powerful systems of the list are in the USA.

Notes