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Does anyone know if there any current or near-term applications for these? Seems super cost-prohibitive, especially if you can just throw more compute at the pr

Does anyone know if there any current or near-term applications for these? Seems super cost-prohibitive, especially if you can just throw more compute at the problem instead. Super cool (hah) either way.

jiggawatts 3y ago
Just guessing since the article was information deficient: mainframes. They’re so expensive anyway that adding on a closed cycle cryogenic cooler isn’t even in the top ten line items on the bill. At cryogenic temperatures, even older architectures not optimised for it can hit 9 GHz. An optimised modern CPU could probably run at well over 10 GHz, which is a big performance boost for legacy single-threaded code. Cooling and “overclocking” the CPUs would be cheaper than rewriting the code. More extreme frequencies (over 100 GHz) can be achieved with existing but more exotic digital electronics such as Rapid Single Flux Quantum (RSFQ), which uses liquid helium cooling. This is used in some military radars, radio telescopes, and a few other similar high-speed signal processing scenarios. If ordinary silicon could run at, say, 20 GHz with cheaper LN cooling, that would lower the cost of some fancy radars.
- fbdab103 3y ago
  Liquid nitrogen costs less than a $1/liter. Not sure what kind of reservoir volume they are talking, but indeed talking peanuts in comparison to everything else. The salary of the guy who has to maintain the cooling is going to be more.
- hulitu 3y ago
  > At cryogenic temperatures, even older architectures not optimised for it can hit 9 GHz. An optimised modern CPU could probably run at well over 10 GHz, which is a big performance boost for legacy single-threaded code. Cooling and “overclocking” the CPUs would be cheaper than rewriting the code. When it will work, yes. You just need to take into account that some material characteristic is temperature dependent. /s
snek_case 3y ago
The benefit is that you can speed up any single-threaded code without any changes, and not all code is easily parallelizable.
- ahoka 3y ago
  So running some IBM COBOL batch job even faster.
  - rbanffy 3y ago
    I can see the reason IBM would want to push their mainframes into the 10GHz region.
22c 3y ago
My first thought was that this could have some "co-processor" style applications in quantum computers, but I think the "real" answer is that if datacenter workloads could 2x to 10x in efficiency using chips made with liquid nitrogen cooled transistors vs. traditional silicon, it becomes economical to move in this direction.
rbanffy 3y ago
I would imagine that the first roll-out of this would be with the quantum computer division, as they already have experience with cryogenic cooling. This requires some major redesigns in chassis, encapsulation, boards, and manufacturing processes, so I would assume this would happen first in some esoteric HPC application before hitting POWER. Mainframes would most likely be the last ones - an unreliable fast mainframe is a worse value proposition than a reliable slow one.
hulitu 3y ago
It is right there in the title. The application is "Liquid Nitrogen Cooling". /s

jiggawatts 3y ago

Just guessing since the article was information deficient: mainframes. They’re so expensive anyway that adding on a closed cycle cryogenic cooler isn’t even in the top ten line items on the bill. At cryogenic temperatures, even older architectures not optimised for it can hit 9 GHz. An optimised modern CPU could probably run at well over 10 GHz, which is a big performance boost for legacy single-threaded code. Cooling and “overclocking” the CPUs would be cheaper than rewriting the code. More extreme frequencies (over 100 GHz) can be achieved with existing but more exotic digital electronics such as Rapid Single Flux Quantum (RSFQ), which uses liquid helium cooling. This is used in some military radars, radio telescopes, and a few other similar high-speed signal processing scenarios. If ordinary silicon could run at, say, 20 GHz with cheaper LN cooling, that would lower the cost of some fancy radars.

fbdab103 3y ago
Liquid nitrogen costs less than a $1/liter. Not sure what kind of reservoir volume they are talking, but indeed talking peanuts in comparison to everything else. The salary of the guy who has to maintain the cooling is going to be more.
hulitu 3y ago
> At cryogenic temperatures, even older architectures not optimised for it can hit 9 GHz. An optimised modern CPU could probably run at well over 10 GHz, which is a big performance boost for legacy single-threaded code. Cooling and “overclocking” the CPUs would be cheaper than rewriting the code. When it will work, yes. You just need to take into account that some material characteristic is temperature dependent. /s

snek_case 3y ago

The benefit is that you can speed up any single-threaded code without any changes, and not all code is easily parallelizable.

ahoka 3y ago
So running some IBM COBOL batch job even faster.
- rbanffy 3y ago
  I can see the reason IBM would want to push their mainframes into the 10GHz region.

22c 3y ago

My first thought was that this could have some "co-processor" style applications in quantum computers, but I think the "real" answer is that if datacenter workloads could 2x to 10x in efficiency using chips made with liquid nitrogen cooled transistors vs. traditional silicon, it becomes economical to move in this direction.

rbanffy 3y ago

I would imagine that the first roll-out of this would be with the quantum computer division, as they already have experience with cryogenic cooling. This requires some major redesigns in chassis, encapsulation, boards, and manufacturing processes, so I would assume this would happen first in some esoteric HPC application before hitting POWER. Mainframes would most likely be the last ones - an unreliable fast mainframe is a worse value proposition than a reliable slow one.

hulitu 3y ago

It is right there in the title. The application is "Liquid Nitrogen Cooling". /s