We’ve seen a lot of ARM server activity in recent weeks. ARM chip upstart Calxeda announced both their 5-watt EnergyCore ARM chip (breakdown here) and a partnership with x86 giant HP (outlined here). The ARM architecture is also getting a much necessary, but painfully slow, 64-bit makeover, slated to roll out in 2014.
ARM processors use much less power than even the stingiest x86 chip, which is much of the reason why many tout them as the answer for massive web serving infrastructures. But for rigorous enterprise and HPC (high performance computing) processing chores, ARM simply doesn’t get it done. The 32-bit versions can’t address enough memory, and there isn’t enough oomph in the ARM chip and instruction set to compete with mainstream x86 processors on server-like chores.
But combining ARM with the massive number-crunching power of GPUs might give HPC and analytic processing types the best of both worlds: very high energy efficiency and density without performance compromises. (Read more below…)
An approach like this is probably also the clearest route to exascale, where the biggest hurdle is the fact that simply powering up an exascale system will take the juice of a small city – and a fair amount of its real estate too.
At SC11 on Monday, NVIDIA announces major progress along exactly these lines. First, they’ll talk about Europe’s Mont-Blanc project, the goal of which is to develop a European exascale approach using ultra energy-efficient, off-the-shelf components to build supercomputers that are competitive with Top500 leaders.
Mont-Blanc will rely heavily on NVIDIA’s Tegra ARM processor to act as traffic cop for GeForce GPU accelerators. According to NVIDIA, the first prototype will have 256 ARM processors fronting some number (assumedly large) of NVIDIA GPUs. There is a discussion of Mont-Blanc plans here.
But if you want to investigate the possibilities inherent in combining ARM and GPUs, but don’t have the check book of a major international computing consortium behind you, help is on the way. Next year will bring a CUDA for ARM development kit that includes a board with a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 ARM processor and a CUDA-enabled GPU, along with Gigabit Ethernet, SATA and USB ports. Pricing and other details aren’t yet available.
Putting together ARM and GPUs (or other specialized accelerators) will mount the strongest challenge yet to the x86 hegemony in scientific and technical computing. While there certainly isn’t a large (or much of any) ARM HPC software ecosystem, HPC users are typically quite willing to roll their own when it comes to new technology. They’re happy to build and optimize their own software if the end result is higher performance at less cost.
If the combo proves successful in HPC, then it’s a matter of time before it becomes more fully commercialized and starts popping up in enterprise data centers.