Institute for Advanced Architectures and Algorithms

In the next few years, tremendous increases in computing speeds will revolutionize the way supercomputers are used. Predictive computer simulations will play a critical role in assuring a safe and reliable 21^st century nuclear stockpile, revolutionize scientific discovery, and significantly impact national competitiveness, homeland security and quality of life issues. This dramatic increase in computing power will be driven by a rapid escalation in the parallelism incorporated in microprocessors. The transition from massively parallel architectures to hierarchical systems (hundreds of processor cores per CPU chip) will be as profound and challenging as the change from vector architectures to massively parallel computers that occurred in the early 1990’s. Quickly overcoming this hurdle will provide game changing opportunities in the national security, scientific, and commercial sectors. Without DOE leadership, the chasm between peak speed and sustained performance will grow exponentially, and the societal benefits of advances in component technologies will be delayed and greatly diminished. With DOE leadership of a collaborative effort between the Laboratories and key university and industrial partners, the architectural bottlenecks that limit supercomputer scalability and performance can be overcome. The nation needs an enduring, focused activity that enables supercomputing technology transitions to occur efficiently, assuring that the United States achieves the maximum benefit from technical advances in computing.

To meet these challenges Sandia and Oak Ridge are establishing an Institute for Advanced Architectures and Algorithms (IAA). IAA will be physically distributed center with sites in Albuquerque, NM and Knoxville, TN. Initial IAA focus areas will include:

·     Interconnection Network Technologies
·     Memory Systems
·     Processor Microarchitecture
·     RAS/Resilience
·     System Software
·     Architecture/Algorithm Co-Design