RSK Group of Companies

The first part of the company's name - RSK - does not have a decryption, however, it is unofficially considered an abbreviation of the phrase "Russian supercomputers." Participants in the Skif program say that in case of friction with the law, due to the unauthorized use of the term "Russian," they have prepared a backup version of the name: "native supercomputers."

Products

The key product of the company is the SKIF-Aurora supercomputer platform. It was developed by an alliance, which includes the Italian company Eurotech, RSK SKIF, IPS RAS, with the support of Intel.

In Europe, Eurotech offers this platform under the Aurora brand. As Eurotech reported in 2009, Aurora, SKIF row 4 and SKIF-Aurora are different brands of the same product in different countries.

History

2022: Memorandum with SPbPU on joint work in the format of the Competence Center

Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) and the RSK group of companies Russian , a developer and integrator of innovative solutions for supercomputer both high-performance computing (HPC data centers) and intelligent "on storage systems demand," signed a Memorandum of Cooperation. The joint work of SPbPU and RSK will be carried out in the format of the Competence Center, which will ensure the transfer of advanced digital technologies in the fields of application of computer-aided design () CAD computer and engineering (). In CAE addition, the university and the Russian manufacturer of high-performance solutions will develop a plan for the development of supercomputer computing at SPBPU University within the framework of joint projects. This was reported on July 27, 2022 in the RSK Group of Companies. More. here

2020: Leadership in the ranking of Top50 supercomputers of Russia and the CIS by the number of projects

On March 31, 2020, it became known that the RSK group of companies announced that in the last 32 edition of the rating of the Top50 most powerful supercomputers in Russia and the CIS (announced on March 31, 2020) there are 11 computer complexes manufactured by the RSK group of companies. The company's share in this list is 22%, that is, every fifth supercomputer in the Top50 rating has been developed and installed by RSK specialists. Read more here.

2017: TAdviser interview

In November 2017, Alexey Shmelev, Executive Director of the RSK Group of Companies, told TAdviser about the features of the RSK Tornado cluster solution based on the new Intel Xeon Scalable processors.

2011

In March 2011, it became known that Chelyabinsk South Ural State University (SUSU) and RSK supplier supercomputers SKIF created a joint venture HPC Impulse (from the English HPC Impulse) to produce components for high-performance computing systems. The university owns 34% of the authorized capital of the joint venture, and RSK SKIF - 66%^[1]Valentin Dorokhov, graduate of the magistracy of the Department of System Programming of SUSU, was appointed Director of the joint venture.

Federal law 217-FZ allows universities to create small innovative enterprises, the university explains. In addition to HPC Impulse with the participation of SUSU, twenty more enterprises have been created to date. As Lyudmila Poggivotova, director of the innovation department of SUSU, told CNews, most of them were established with various individuals, and the university's share in the authorized capital of these enterprises is the same as in the case of RSK SKIF. The projects that these enterprises are engaged in lie in different areas - from IT and medical equipment to the production of semi-finished products.

Executive Director of RSK SKIF Alexei Shmelev told CNews that at the initial stage of their joint venture it is planned to establish the production of water cooling radiators for the SKIF-Aurora supercomputer platform.

The production of radiators in Russia, according to preliminary estimates of RSK SKIF, should cost 2-3 times cheaper than the purchase of similar components abroad. According to Shmelev, the production of radiators for SKIF-Aurora will be carried out in the own technopark of SUSU in Chelyabinsk. At the same time, the developer of radiators is RSK SKIF, says Shmelev. The company will purchase these radiators from the joint venture both for themselves and plans to supply them to Eurotech. "Our foreign partners do not like the way radiators are manufactured in Europe, and they expressed their readiness to purchase this component from us," says Shmelev.

In the future, the joint venture also plans to launch the production and soldering of printed circuit boards for supercomputers. However, according to Shmelev, this is a very distant prospect. In addition to iron production, HPC Impulse will offer commercial services for modeling complex technological processes on a supercomputer.

To date, SUSU has installed three high-performance systems, the most powerful of which is SKIF-Aurora SUSU with a capacity of 24 Tflops. Now it is being modernized, after which the capacity of this system will be 104 Tflops.

Registered at the end of 2008, RSK SKIF has so far made only four deliveries of its platform, two of which are to SUSU. When asked by CNews why SUSU did not form a joint venture with the more experienced T-Platforms company for the production of components and the provision of supercomputer modeling services, Professor Leonid Sokolinsky, dean of the Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Computer Science, replied that the university did not want to "focus on one monopoly."

RSK SKIF, a company specializing in the development and integration of next-generation supercomputer solutions based on Intel architectures and liquid cooling technology, has been transformed into a PCK group of companies. This was announced on July 12, 2011 by Alexey Shmelev, executive director of the group. As a result of the organizational transformations completed at the end of June, four companies joined the PCK group. The RSK SKIF brand now belongs to the integrator of the full cycle of supercomputer solutions, who is charged with a wide range of tasks, including the development and installation of turnkey data centers.

RSK Technologies will be engaged in the creation of hardware platforms, new technologies and the formation of know-how in the field of supercomputer solutions. The scope of this company includes research and development, as well as the organization of serial production of products intended for the production of completed solutions and the implementation of projects.

RSK Soft is a developer of software products and solutions that increase the efficiency of application use of supercomputer complexes, including system software and vertically oriented platforms based on cloud computing technologies.

The main tasks of RSK System include warranty support and the provision of services for the operation of supercomputer solutions and data centers.

The total number of the group is about 40 people, along with this, quite a lot of specialists are involved in outsourcing. Shmelev explained that the group does not yet have a parent company, partnerships have been established between all its members, and the point of entry for customers is the integrator of RSK SKIF.

On the basis of cloud technologies, the RSK Soft company has developed the Personal Virtual Computer platform, which is being implemented at the South Ural State University in Chelyabinsk, where the SKIF-Aurora SUSU supercomputer complex is installed. This platform, rationally using software licenses, personifies support for the educational process, offers interactive teaching aids, provides standard applications as services, and provides tasks on a supercomputer.

Under the contract with Roshydromet, a pilot system with a capacity of several dozen teraflops is being installed. Another high-performance pilot system is being created at MIPT. The group of companies expects to achieve an increase in revenues by 50-70% during the first year of work and, in proportion to these indicators, to increase the number of employees of the group of companies. Future plans include going beyond the CIS.

2010

In October 2010, the Arbitration Court of the city Moscow declared illegal and overturned the decision of the FAS Russia in the case of violation by the Institute of Software Systems of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IPS RAS) of antimonopoly legislation.

2009

In March 2009, it became known that the monetization of the Russian-Belarusian Skif-Grid program will be carried out through RSK Skif CJSC, which has the exclusive right to transfer technology that arose during the development of domestic supercomputers. Vadim Zadneprovsky, General Director of RSK Skif and Executive Director of the Skif-Grid Program from Russia, confirmed to CNews that "she and only she" will have such a right.

In a conversation with CNews, Zadneprovsky convincingly asked not to consider RSK Skif a structure intended for the development of budget funds: "We are not the same saw that saws budget money, and then puts a report on the table. Our goals are to support the program (Skif-Grid - CNews), research, development, and life on modest incomes. "

According to Sergei Abramov, the volume of the Russian Skifov market of the new fourth row may be expressed in $500 million. According to him, the construction by the fall of 2009 of the Skif supercomputer of the fourth row with a peak performance of 0.5 petaflops (0.5x1015 floating point operations per second) will require a budget of "$50-70 million or 1.5-1.7 billion rubles." This includes storage, electrical, and cooling systems.

The total costs of the Union State for Skif-Grid in 2007-2010 are expected to amount to 1.02 billion Russian rubles. Sergei Abramov says that so far the financing of the program has been carried out "in the planned volumes." At the same time, he stipulates that budget financing concerns only the stages of development and creation of prototypes.

As of March 2009, the most productive cluster of the Skif and Skif-Grid programs was installed at the Moscow State University Research Computing Center. It holds the 54th Top500 listing line for November 2008 with a peak performance of 60 Tflops (60x1012 floating point operations per second) and 47.17 Tflops shown on the Linpack test. During the existence of the Skif and Skif-Grid programs, more than 20 supercomputers were built, five of which were included in different versions of the world Top500 listing.

The presentation of the RSK company took place simultaneously with the first public display of the solutions of the fourth row of Skif supercomputers. According to the developers, the technologies of the "fourth row" will allow building clusters with peak performance of up to 5 Pflops. Since November 2008, the world supercomputer rating has been headed by IBM-developed Roadrunner cluster with a peak performance of 1.457 Pflops (it shows 1.1 Pflops on the Linpack test).

The developers of Scythians often talk about the heterogeneity of the global supercomputing industry, pointing to the existence of "two technological layers" in high-performance computing: "level N" and "level N-1." The first includes solutions that are in the top 10-20 positions of the world Top500 rating, "which cannot be bought for money." The latter are available internationally, but do not guarantee competitive computing power.

The developers call the use of domestic "level N" technologies the fundamental difference between the "Scythians" of the "fourth row" and the three previous lines. These are ultra-dense installation (up to 10 processors per 1Unit form factor device), liquid cooling of printed circuit boards and a 3D torus system network. Sergey Abramov says that if "in the" first row "" Skif "our intellectual property was cabinets, then in the" fourth row "this is everything except chips."

If there is an order, the Skif cluster for 0.5 Pflops can be created by the fall of 2009, for 1 Pflops - by the fall of 2010, and for 5 Pflops - in 2012. Clusters will be delivered with ALT Linux Skif preinstalled.

• At the end of 2009, an investigation was initiated against the ISP RAS. The reason for this was information in the press that the general director of the winning company "RSK SKIF" Vadim Zadneprovsky is simultaneously the deputy director of the IPS RAS, the customer and the organizer of the auction. In April 2010, the institute was found to have violated antitrust laws.

2008

RSK Skif was registered at the end of 2008 "with the aim of developing and implementing supercomputer systems of the Skif family, software for them and services based on them." It belongs to four founders - individuals, one of which is Vadim Zadneprovsky himself. He did not name the three remaining founders, but explained to CNews that the scientific director of the Skif-Grid program and the director of its main Russian participant in the IPS RAS, Sergei Abramov, were not among them.

See also

• Supercomputers (global market)
• Supercomputer
• Supercomputers (CIS market)
• Supercomputers (Russian market)
• Supercomputers (global market)
• Quantum computer

Notes