Tag Archives: supercomputing

How Supercomputers Can Transform Society

I’ve always wanted to cover the annual supercomputing conference, and SC14 in New Orleans in November turned out to be my opportunity. Here’s a look at the stories I wrote for Data Center Knowledge from the event.

  • You May Not Know It, But You Used a Supercomputer Today: Supercomputers touch our daily lives in a wide variety of ways. The scientific advances enabled by these machines transform the way Americans receive everything from weather reports to medical testing and pharmaceuticals. But many remain unaware of the sector. “We don’t do a good job communicating the importance of what we do to a broader community,” said Intel’s Wilf Pinfold. “There isn’t anything we use in modern society that isn’t influenced by these machines and what they do.”
  • Rise of Direct Liquid Cooling in Data Centers Likely Inevitable: Experts in high performance computing say more data centers will begin using liquid cooling for servers over the next three to five years, citing the increased data-crunching requirements of scientific research, cloud computing, and big data.
  • Iceotope Advances its Liquid Cooling Tech With New Design:  Iceotope and other vendors in the space are fueling a renaissance of sorts for liquid cooling in data centers. The idea of bringing liquid coolant directly to the source of heat in the server took a back seat to air cooling in the 80s, but has recently seen growing interest in the market.