"Computational Science Impact: From Solar Cells to Exascale Computing"

Abstract

Beginning with a brief overview of a boundary integral problem that led from an intractable computational problem to model an efficient solar cell but through a novel mathematical formulation became computationally tractable, I will lay the foundation of the importance of mathematics in computation.  This problem led to my career in Computational Science and High Performance Computing (HPC).  Today, as we move from the Petascale era to Exascale era, HPC is a tool frequently used to understand complex problems in numerous areas such as aerospace, biology, climate modeling and energy.  Scientists and engineers working on problems in these and other areas demand ever increasing compute power for their problems.  In order to satisfy the demand for increase performance to achieve breakthrough science and engineering, we turn to parallelism through large systems with multi-core chips. For these systems to be useful massive parallelism at the chip level is not sufficient.  I will describe some of the challenges that will need to be considered in designing Petascale and eventually Exascale systems.  Through the combination of HPC hardware coupled with novel mathematical and algorithmic approaches, such as those described in the initial problem of this talk, some efforts toward breakthroughs in science and engineering are described.  While progress is being made, there remain many challenges for the computational science and engineering community to apply ultra-scale, multi-core systems to “Big” science problems with impact on society. New radical algorithmic approaches are needed that emphasize minimization of data transmission instead of floating point performance. In conclusion, some discussion not only on the most obvious way to use ultra-scale, multi-core HPC systems will be given but also some thoughts on how one might use such systems coupled with new computational science techniques to tackle previously intractable problems.
 

Bio

Dr. Kirk E. Jordan, Emerging Solutions Executive in the Computational Science Center at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, has more than 25 years experience in high performance and parallel computing. The Computational Science Center is addressing the challenges involved in achieving Petascale and Exascale performance on IBM’s very high end system platforms, running real workloads to obtain significant results in science, engineering, business and social policy, and partnering and collaborating with key IBM clients on the most challenging applications and workloads on these large systems. He oversees development of applications for IBM’s advanced computing architectures, investigates and develops concepts for new areas of growth involving high performance computing (HPC), and provides leadership in high-end computing and simulation in such areas as computational fluid dynamics, systems biology and high-end visualization. At IBM, he held several positions promoting HPC and high performance visualization, including leading technical efforts in the Deep Computing organization within IBM’s Systems and Technology Group, managing IBM’s University Relations SUR(SharedUniversity Research) Program and leading IBM’s Healthcare and Life Sciences Strategic Relationships and Institutes of Innovation Programs. A Ph.D. in Applied Math, he held computational science positions at Exxon R&E, Argonne National Lab, Thinking Machines and Kendall Square Research before joining IBM in 1994. A Research Affiliate in MIT’s Department of Aeronautic and Astronautics, he holds leadership positions in the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), including Vice Chair of Computational Science and Engineering SIAG and the Committee on Science Policy. He is on several boards including Math Biosciences Institute’s Board of Trustees at The Ohio State University, Board of the National Professional Sciences Master’s Association, and the International Advisory Board for the Systems Biomedicine Institute at Shanghai Jaio Tong University. He is associate editor of several international journals and Guest Editor for two recent issues of IBM’s Journal for Research and Development.