Gerhard R. Joubert – författare

As predicted by Gordon E. Moore in 1965, the performance of computer processors increased at an exponential rate. Nevertheless, the increases in computing speeds of single processor machines were eventually curtailed by physical constraints. This led to the development of parallel computing, and whilst progress has been made in this field, the complexities of parallel algorithm design, the deficiencies of the available software development tools and the complexity of scheduling tasks over thousands and even millions of processing nodes represent a major challenge to the construction and use of more powerful parallel systems.This book presents the proceedings of the biennial International Conference on Parallel Computing (ParCo2015), held in Edinburgh, Scotland, in September 2015. Topics covered include computer architecture and performance, programming models and methods, as well as applications. The book also includes two invited talks and a number of mini-symposia.Exascale computing holds enormous promise in terms of increasing scientific knowledge acquisition and thus contributing to the future well-being and prosperity of mankind. A number of innovative approaches to the development and use of future high-performance and high-throughput systems are to be found in this book, which will be of interest to all those whose work involves the handling and processing of large amounts of data.

The most powerful computers work by harnessing the combined computational power of millions of processors, and exploiting the full potential of such large-scale systems is something which becomes more difficult with each succeeding generation of parallel computers. Alternative architectures and computer paradigms are increasingly being investigated in an attempt to address these difficulties. Added to this, the pervasive presence of heterogeneous and parallel devices in consumer products such as mobile phones, tablets, personal computers and servers also demands efficient programming environments and applications aimed at small-scale parallel systems as opposed to large-scale supercomputers.This book presents a selection of papers presented at the conference: Parallel Computing (ParCo2017), held in Bologna, Italy, on 12 to 15 September 2017. The conference included contributions about alternative approaches to achieving High Performance Computing (HPC) to potentially surpass exa- and zetascale performances, as well as papers on the application of quantum computers and FPGA processors. These developments are aimed at making available systems better capable of solving intensive computational scientific/engineering problems such as climate models, security applications and classic NP-problems, some of which cannot currently be managed by even the most powerful supercomputers available. New areas of application, such as robotics, AI and learning systems, data science, the Internet of Things (IoT), and in-car systems and autonomous vehicles were also covered.As always, ParCo2017 attracted a large number of notable contributions covering present and future developments in parallel computing, and the book will be of interest to all those working in the field.

The realization that the use of components off the shelf (COTS) could reduce costs sparked the evolution of the massive parallel computing systems available today. The main problem with such systems is the development of suitable operating systems, algorithms and application software that can utilise the potential processing power of large numbers of processors. As a result, systems comprising millions of processors are still limited in the applications they can efficiently solve. Two alternative paradigms that may offer a solution to this problem are Quantum Computers (QC) and Brain Inspired Computers (BIC). This book presents papers from the 14th edition of the biennial international conference on High Performance Computing - From Clouds and Big Data to Exascale and Beyond, held in Cetraro, Italy, from 2 - 6 July 2018. It is divided into 4 sections covering data science, quantum computing, high-performance computing, and applications. The papers presented during the workshop covered a wide spectrum of topics on new developments in the rapidly evolving supercomputing field – including QC and BIC – and a selection of contributions presented at the workshop are included in this volume. In addition, two papers presented at a workshop on Brain Inspired Computing in 2017 and an overview of work related to data science executed by a number of universities in the USA, parts of which were presented at the 2018 and previous workshops, are also included.The book will be of interest to all those whose work involves high-performance computing.

This millennium will see the increased use of parallel computing technologies at all levels of mainstream computing. Most computer hardware will use these technologies to achieve higher computing speeds, high speed access to very large distributed databases and greater flexibility through heterogeneous computing. These developments can be expected to result in the extended use of all types of parallel computers in virtually all areas of human endeavour. Compute-intensive problems in emerging areas such as financial modelling and multimedia systems, in addition to traditional application areas of parallel computing such as scientific computing and simulation, will stimulate the developments. Parallel computing as a field of scientific research and development will move from a niche concentrating on solving compute-intensive scientific and engineering problems to become one of the fundamental computing technologies.This book gives a retrospective view of what has been achieved in the parallel computing field during the past three decades, as well as a prospective view of expected future developments.