Energy Efficiency in High Performance Computing: the Mont-Blanc Project

Daniele TAFANI
Research Scientist, LEIBNIZ SUPERCOMPUTING CENTRE

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Abstract : Energy efficiency is a primary concern for the design of any computer system and it is unanimously recognized that the development of future Exascale systems will be strongly constrained by their power consumption.

The Mont-Blanc project has set itself the objective to design a new type of computer architecture capable of defining future global High Performance Computing (HPC) standards that will deliver Exascale performance while using 15 to 30 time less energy. The reduction of energy consumption will be achieved by developing a full energy-efficient HPC prototype using low-power commercially available embedded technology.

The project is coordinated by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) and has a budget of over 14 million Euros, including over 8 million Euros funded by the European Commission. The proposed talk will cover the Mont-Blanc project strategy for addressing the energy consumption challenge of future Exascale system deployment from the hardware, software and infrastructure perspective.

Biography : Daniele Tafani received the Laurea degree in Telecommunications Engineering from University “Sapienza” of Rome, Italy in 2006. In 2007 he worked as a software engineer in IBM Tivoli Laboratories of Rome, Italy. In 2008, he joined the Rince Institute in Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland where he completed his Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering, focusing on modelling and resource optimisation of Optical Burst Switched networks. Since 2012, he works as a researcher in the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre of Munich, Germany. His research interests include energy efficiency in high performance computing and modelling and performance evaluation of optical networks.