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I'm a VC and I've seen lots of pitches lately for various tech related to new architectures, be it GPU, FPGA or RISC. I'd add cryptocurrency to list workloads w

I'm a VC and I've seen lots of pitches lately for various tech related to new architectures, be it GPU, FPGA or RISC. I'd add cryptocurrency to list workloads with insatiable computing demands.

crb002 8y ago
Massive parallel prefix and reduction operations in RAM. Start with just the MPI standard reduction ops. 1000x faster than Von Neuman bottleneck.
- crb002 8y ago
  Then an ASIC for sparse matrix multiply. Valiant's reduction of CFG parsing. Massive speedup to parsing workflows, and boon to security by getting rid of hand rolled parsers.
- snaky 8y ago
  > Massive parallel prefix and reduction operations in RAM Sounds similar to Micron Automata Processor.
  - crb002 8y ago
    Micron's processor in memory doesn't have near the same bandwidth as a processor in memory array geared to doing parallel prefix.
so_tired 8y ago
Do u see more pitches for source-code level solutions ? i.e. analyzing and modifying the huge legacy of existing code base ? This is a very difficult area of course (both financially and technologically). But the pay off can be very large. Imagine a vmware-like transformation at the source code level.
- austincummings 8y ago
  > Imagine a vmware-like transformation at the source code level. I'm not sure what you mean by this, but I'm interested. Could you explain?
  - mitchty 8y ago
    Sounds like as400 bytecode maybe?
  - platform 8y ago
    Probably things similar to Automated Code transformations. Eg: http://www.semdesigns.com/Products/Services/LegacyMigration.html http://www.semdesigns.com/Products/Services/LegacyMigration.... they site some numbers by Gartner (from '99, when 2K scare was on everyone's mind) "... Cost of doing a manual migration:The Gartner Group notes that the cost for manual code conversion can range from $6 - $26 per LOC and is accomplished at a rate of 160 LOC per day (Gartner Group study "Forecasting the Worldwide IT Services Industry: 1999,1"). An assumption is that the migration is going between two relatively similar languages (e.g., not trying to go from COBOL to full object-oriented Java). Using Gartner's numbers, a million lines of code costs $6-$26 million to migrate. Time to do a manual migration: Again, using Gartner's numbers, a legacy system with a million lines of code requires some 28+ man-years of labor to convert. With a team of 10, this takes 3 elapsed years if done well. With larger systems, one has larger teams. Larger teams require more interactions, slowing them down further. A 10 million line application simply doesn't have any practical manual migration due to time frames. " Never used their services. But I do think this will continue to be difficult, yet beneficial option, for the migrations from legacy/less secure software.

I'm a VC and I've seen lots of pitches lately for various tech related to new architectures, be it GPU, FPGA or RISC. I'd add cryptocurrency to list workloads with insatiable computing demands.

crb002 8y ago

Massive parallel prefix and reduction operations in RAM. Start with just the MPI standard reduction ops. 1000x faster than Von Neuman bottleneck.

crb002 8y ago
Then an ASIC for sparse matrix multiply. Valiant's reduction of CFG parsing. Massive speedup to parsing workflows, and boon to security by getting rid of hand rolled parsers.
snaky 8y ago
> Massive parallel prefix and reduction operations in RAM Sounds similar to Micron Automata Processor.
- crb002 8y ago
  Micron's processor in memory doesn't have near the same bandwidth as a processor in memory array geared to doing parallel prefix.

so_tired 8y ago

Do u see more pitches for source-code level solutions ? i.e. analyzing and modifying the huge legacy of existing code base ? This is a very difficult area of course (both financially and technologically). But the pay off can be very large. Imagine a vmware-like transformation at the source code level.

austincummings 8y ago
> Imagine a vmware-like transformation at the source code level. I'm not sure what you mean by this, but I'm interested. Could you explain?
- mitchty 8y ago
  Sounds like as400 bytecode maybe?
- platform 8y ago
  Probably things similar to Automated Code transformations. Eg: http://www.semdesigns.com/Products/Services/LegacyMigration.html http://www.semdesigns.com/Products/Services/LegacyMigration.... they site some numbers by Gartner (from '99, when 2K scare was on everyone's mind) "... Cost of doing a manual migration:The Gartner Group notes that the cost for manual code conversion can range from $6 - $26 per LOC and is accomplished at a rate of 160 LOC per day (Gartner Group study "Forecasting the Worldwide IT Services Industry: 1999,1"). An assumption is that the migration is going between two relatively similar languages (e.g., not trying to go from COBOL to full object-oriented Java). Using Gartner's numbers, a million lines of code costs $6-$26 million to migrate. Time to do a manual migration: Again, using Gartner's numbers, a legacy system with a million lines of code requires some 28+ man-years of labor to convert. With a team of 10, this takes 3 elapsed years if done well. With larger systems, one has larger teams. Larger teams require more interactions, slowing them down further. A 10 million line application simply doesn't have any practical manual migration due to time frames. " Never used their services. But I do think this will continue to be difficult, yet beneficial option, for the migrations from legacy/less secure software.