Prototype of HP’s futuristic ‘Machine’ coming next year - stephanunniburd

A prototype of Hewlett-Packard's art movement Machine data processor will be prepare for partners to develop software on by next year, though the finished product is still half a decennary away.

The single-rack prototype testament have 2,500 CPU cores and an stunning 320TB of chief computer memory, CTO and HP Labs Film director Martin Confess told reporters at the HP Discover conference Wednesday. This is much than 20 times the amount of any server on the market today, he claimed.

But there's a catch: the prototype will use underway DRAM memory chips, because the innovative memristor technology that Horsepower eventually plans to habituate is motionless low-level development—one of the big reasons The Machine cadaver several years away.

HP is placing a Brobdingnagian bet that it give the sack develop a new typewrite of reckoner that stores all data in vast pools of non-volatile memory. HP says the Machine will be superior to any computer today. A system the size of a refrigerator will constitute able to do the work of a whole data center, it claims.

Rivals have scoffed, pointing to the solid job of rewriting software for a new computer architecture. Only HP thinks information technology's the only way to parcel out with tomorrow's large data sets in an Energy effectual way.

hp the machine 2 — Si photonics components for The Machine on show at the HP Laps booth at HP Discover on June 3, 2022.

Say adios to disk drives

In current server architectures, the CPUs lie down at the shopping centre, with multiple layers of retentivity and storage attached, including DRAM and hard disk drives. HP's goal is to do away with magnetic disk drives altogether, and replace DRAM with pools of non-volatile memory.

That type of memory keeps its data when the power is switched off, so the Machine rear end be highly energy efficient. Non-volatile remembering exists nowadays, for example NAND Flash, but its performance is slow, at to the lowest degree in high-performance computing terms, and memristors should pass far greater storage density.

Next year's prototype machine won't be really energy efficient, still. HP will have to keep all that Drachma powered risen so that the data will beryllium in stock to applications. But IT will act Eastern Samoa a "placeholder" for non-volatile retentivity, Fink said, allowing partners like SAP to start testing applications.

Helium sees a later version of the Machine using phase-change memory, which is another type of nonvolatile memory still under ontogenesis, and memristors arriving later on that.

The Machine makes memory "a first class citizen," he said, with memory pools linked by high-speed silicon photonics that will carry data at 1.2TB per second.

"The Machine is nonvoluntary by qualification memory the center of the universe, with the processors surrounding it," he said. And he has a fres name for the computer architecture the Machine is based on: Memory Driven Computing.

What apps will The Machine run?

HP is having a "huge debate" about the applications that will run connected the simple machine. Virtually people want to transfer over existing workloads, which HP says bequeath make up possible, but more riveting are the New applications non possible nowadays.

Confess offered the example of a woodworking plane that lands at an airport 30 minutes early but can't make use of a nearby barren gate, because the airline's computer systems aren't smart decent to know it's available.

The Machine wish let airlines store all the details about every arrival and departure time, along with gate information, weather information and all the new variables, all in-storage and addressable for immediate processing.

It's a great story, but as with any Major new technology that's still five years out, it's impossible to say if it will pan off. Intel once thought IT would take over the cosmos with a new processor architecture called Itanium, and that chip seems headed for the scrap heap.

But HP is pushing full steam ahead. A Labs booth on the HP Discover show floor has been given over to showcasing technologies that will fit inside the new organisation, including the silicon photonics components.

One booth shows an emulation joyride HP engineers are using to rise the Machine's OS and microcode. On a laptop computer, it can simulate the huge memory pools the system of rules will use even though the hardware itself doesn't exist yet.

Known as the Motorcar Architecture Simulator, it can also simulate compute nodes for the Machine, and engineers hindquarters select from x86 or ARM-type processors, indicating The Machine will be CPU agnostic.

In fact, the type of mainframe isn't main, Fink said. Large companies could even design their possess, application program-specific CPUs, operating theatre attach GPUs surgery network interface cards.

One stall shows a mock-up of what depart of the Machine testament look like—but it's a non-working model, a reminder of the work out HP calm down has to do.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/427847/prototype-of-hps-futuristic-machine-coming-next-year.html

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