3 ms·

What specifically about the system changes as you cross from "almost exascale" to "definitely exascale" to justify calling it a 'barrier'?

alephnerd 2y ago
The same reason we choose to define a Gigabyte as 10^9 or use the Richter scale to measure earthquakes. We need a benchmark to delineate between large magnitudes. Furthermore, there are very real engineering problems that had to be solved to even reach this point. A lot of noobs take GPUs, Scipy, BLAS, CUDA, etc for granted when in reality all of these were subsidized by HPC research. The DoE's Exascale project was one of the largest buyers for compute for much of the 21st century and helped subsidize Nvidia, Intel, AMD, and other vendors when they were at their worst financially.
- marshray 2y ago
  Did you even read the question?
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    And I answered - building the logistics and ecosystem
    - Dalewyn 2y ago
      He asked what is significant about 1 exascale that it's a "barrier". Now granted, the original rendition of this saying ("Breaking the sound barrier.") is also arbitrary because mach 1 is the speed of sound travelling through air on planet Earth, it's still a valid question that you did not answer.
      - dghlsakjg 2y ago
        Breaking the sound barrier isn't arbitrary. Indeed even measuring it using the Mach number shows that. Mach 1 isn't fixed, it is variable based on a number of attributes. At Mach numbers above 1 the compressibility of the air is entirely different. The medium in which the airplane operates behaves differently, in other words. The sound barrier was a barrier because the planes they were using stopped behaving predictably at Mach > 1. They had to learn to design planes differently if they wanted to fly at those speeds. Mach 1 is an external constraint mandated by the laws of physics. There is a good reason that sound can't travel faster. That is why it is a barrier to be broken. It is a paradigm shift imposed entirely by the properties of our physical world.
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      You did not answer the question. Reaching 0.7 exaflops also requires those logistics and ecosystem. You didn't say what changes when you reach 1.0 (because it's nothing). It's an easy to understand mark on a very smooth difficulty curve. Not a barrier.
  - dekhn 2y ago
    You're wasting your time by engaging here.
    - marshray 2y ago
      Indeed. I rarely do these days.

alephnerd 2y ago

The same reason we choose to define a Gigabyte as 10^9 or use the Richter scale to measure earthquakes. We need a benchmark to delineate between large magnitudes. Furthermore, there are very real engineering problems that had to be solved to even reach this point. A lot of noobs take GPUs, Scipy, BLAS, CUDA, etc for granted when in reality all of these were subsidized by HPC research. The DoE's Exascale project was one of the largest buyers for compute for much of the 21st century and helped subsidize Nvidia, Intel, AMD, and other vendors when they were at their worst financially.

marshray 2y ago
Did you even read the question?
- alephnerd 2y ago
  And I answered - building the logistics and ecosystem
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    He asked what is significant about 1 exascale that it's a "barrier". Now granted, the original rendition of this saying ("Breaking the sound barrier.") is also arbitrary because mach 1 is the speed of sound travelling through air on planet Earth, it's still a valid question that you did not answer.
    - dghlsakjg 2y ago
      Breaking the sound barrier isn't arbitrary. Indeed even measuring it using the Mach number shows that. Mach 1 isn't fixed, it is variable based on a number of attributes. At Mach numbers above 1 the compressibility of the air is entirely different. The medium in which the airplane operates behaves differently, in other words. The sound barrier was a barrier because the planes they were using stopped behaving predictably at Mach > 1. They had to learn to design planes differently if they wanted to fly at those speeds. Mach 1 is an external constraint mandated by the laws of physics. There is a good reason that sound can't travel faster. That is why it is a barrier to be broken. It is a paradigm shift imposed entirely by the properties of our physical world.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    You did not answer the question. Reaching 0.7 exaflops also requires those logistics and ecosystem. You didn't say what changes when you reach 1.0 (because it's nothing). It's an easy to understand mark on a very smooth difficulty curve. Not a barrier.
- dekhn 2y ago
  You're wasting your time by engaging here.
  - marshray 2y ago
    Indeed. I rarely do these days.