The implementation of projects such as new infrastructure and eastern and western computing has put forward higher requirements for promoting the intensification and service innovation of computing power, algorithms, data, application resources, etc. Computing infrastructure presents new challenges.
"In order to solve the challenges faced by the operation of supercomputing centers in my country, improve the application level of supercomputing in my country, and promote the transformation of supercomputing centers from providing bare metal to providing multi-domain application services, it is imperative to build a supercomputing Internet." June 22 , Yang Guangwen, director of the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from Science and Technology Daily.
Yang Guangwen revealed that the preliminary results of the research on my country's supercomputing Internet prototype project have been achieved and will be officially released in the near future.
In the future, these achievements will further support the interconnection of intelligent computing centers, and support the construction and operation of future computing power networks at a higher level.
The layout and construction of supercomputing Internet is of great significance
According to Yang Guangwen, the supercomputing Internet is a state-level advanced computing infrastructure based on supercomputers and high-speed Internet. Build a supercomputing resource sharing and trading platform, support the sharing and trading of computing power, data, software, applications and other resources, and provide users with diversified computing power services.
As an advanced computing infrastructure, the supercomputing Internet turns the powerful computing provided by supercomputing into computing services, and provides computing services in a standardized form to users.
"Supercomputing Internet builds a public welfare resource platform with resource sharing and trading capabilities by formulating standards for resource access, sharing, and trading. Data, software, applications, etc. are unified and integrated into supercomputing resources to provide efficient and professional supercomputing services for scientific research, production and life, etc." Yang Guangwen said.
In Yang Guangwen's view, compared with traditional supercomputing applications, the biggest feature of the supercomputing Internet is to transform the provision of supercomputing power into providing supercomputing application services, which has brought about a huge change in the application model of the supercomputing Internet. , which has a considerable role in promoting the development of supercomputing and its applications.
According to Huang Zhenchun, an associate professor at Tsinghua University, as an information infrastructure, the supercomputing Internet plays a role in connecting lower-level resource providers and upper-level users.
Therefore, from the perspective of commercial operation, the core service platform of the supercomputing Internet should be a public welfare platform, which should be applied to the supercomputing service market under the support and guidance of relevant state departments.
Ye Yuejin, R&D engineer of the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, believes that when building a supercomputing Internet, it is necessary to change the fragmented computing power and unbalanced utilization of resources caused by the decentralized and independent operation of supercomputing centers, and realize the interconnection and resource sharing of supercomputing resources. At the same time, it is necessary to build a supercomputing management and application platform service system, provide cross-domain unified service strategies and evaluation indicators, provide parallel application software, and software sharing and trading mechanisms; in addition, it is necessary to support the construction of various fields. and application platforms in key industries, make full use of national supercomputing resources, effectively support key scientific research and industry users, guide and cultivate the commercialization and marketization of supercomputing resources and services, and fundamentally improve the research and development of parallel algorithms and parallel software in my country level, so that supercomputing can better serve scientific and technological innovation, industrial upgrading, etc.
"The construction and development of the supercomputing Internet will provide high-quality solutions at the national level to realize the integrated and collaborative innovation of national big data centers, and provide a solid foundation for the century project that opens the era of computing power economy," said Yang Guangwen.
Supercomputing Internet still faces many challenges
"The core goal of the supercomputing Internet is to ensure that supercomputing services achieve a revolutionary change from traditional computing power to providing services." Yang Guangwen said that only by realizing the high-speed interconnection of resources can various supercomputing resources become an organic Overall, it may support the formation of application-oriented industries or industry consortia, build application platforms and application systems, and provide effective high-performance computing application services for application fields and related industries.
Yang Guangwen introduced that the construction and operation of the supercomputing Internet currently faces many challenges in terms of technology, talents, business model and industry cultivation.
From a technical point of view, the supercomputing Internet still needs to efficiently connect supercomputing resources from different supercomputing centers and resource providers through high-speed networks and distribute heterogeneous supercomputing resources. efficient scheduling of shared and high-performance computing tasks.
From the perspective of human resources, the construction and operation of the supercomputing Internet involves many research directions in the fields of high-performance computing, computer networks, parallel software, distributed systems, etc., especially inseparable from the supercomputing operations dominated by supercomputing centers Management and technology development talents require a team of talents with relevant application fields and industry expertise and industry experience.
From the perspective of industrial ecology, the supercomputing Internet is built on the basis of supercomputing and high-speed networks, and its dependence on related industrial ecology is very obvious. From the development and optimization of operating systems, basic software to parallel application software, these will affect the supercomputing The construction and operation of the Internet.
"In the initial stage and development stage of the professional supercomputing service industry oriented to the application field, it is urgent for the state to give strong support in industrial policies and other aspects to promote the rapid growth of enterprise alliances or clusters with technological and market advantages." Ye Yuejin said.
Adhere to the standard in the construction process
"The construction of supercomputing Internet will effectively gather supercomputing hardware resources and professional talents, and research parallel software development, testing, migration, sharing and service technology based on supercomputing systems, and support and encourage the development of parallel application software." Yang Guangwen said .
Huang Zhenchun believes that in the construction of the supercomputing Internet, a series of principles such as standardization, service-oriented, and domain-based need to be followed to ensure the openness and universality of the supercomputing Internet; The cooperation and promotion of the computing Internet can also ensure the compatibility, stability and availability of the system through mature standards, and can also promote the opening of relevant standards and ensure the continuous development and evolution of the supercomputing Internet.
my country attaches great importance to the supercomputing Internet project, and in 2020, in the key project of "high performance computing" in the key research and development plan, it will specially deploy the supercomputing Internet prototype project - the research and construction of the application platform and service system in the field of national high-performance computing environment, Important progress has been made in many aspects.
It is worth mentioning that the supercomputing Internet prototype project has also received strong support from Zhijiang Laboratory, and at the same time can better support the implementation of the major project of "Intelligent Computing Digital Reactor" of Zhijiang Laboratory.
Yang Guangwen introduced that the supercomputing Internet prototype project can realize high-speed network interconnection of hundreds of gigabytes per second between supercomputing centers in multiple countries, and aggregate the computing power of not less than 20 billion floating-point operations per second and 1 exabyte. section storage capacity.
At present, the high-speed interconnection of the supercomputing Internet adopts an open architecture and standard protocols, which can support future network bandwidth upgrades and access to more qualified national and other supercomputing centers, resource providers and user units.
At the same time, the supercomputing Internet construction team also researches and develops technologies to support the construction of platforms in the application field for the supercomputing system of the core resource network, and designs a set of support tools for the construction of application platforms based on the core resource network.
Relevant experts believe that the smooth implementation of the supercomputing Internet prototype project proves the technical feasibility of the supercomputing Internet and its strong support for industrial and multi-field applications, and will provide a basis for my country's scientific and technological innovation, industrial upgrading, and social development. The professional services of super computing power can effectively drive the development of related industries and support the smooth implementation of relevant national strategies.
Our reporter Guo Guozhong correspondent Duan Fang