Extreme Scaling

Scalability is an essential property of algorithms and solutions. At the same time, it is considered a major challenge in computer science and places high demands on scientific calculations. In more and more disciplines, the ability to calculate “bigger is better” determines the pace of knowledge and innovation. Therefore, efficient methods are being sought under high pressure to handle large volumes of data using complex software and powerful computing systems, because "to out-compute is to out-compete".

Extreme scaling comprises various areas of computer science and requires innovative, often disruptive approaches. Future supercomputers will consist of billions of cores arranged in complex and heterogeneous hierarchies. Powerful network technologies (within and between systems), with billions of components and sensors, will be required, connected to an Internet of Things. It is important to develop programming models and tools to support application developers in writing efficient software. Future-proof, highly efficient (asynchronous) algorithms must prevent unwanted data transfers and communication and deal with hardware errors. Energy efficiency will be a guiding principle for the design of systems, algorithms and infrastructure.

Algorithms and applications must therefore be redesigned and revised for use in massive parallelization. In the future, data centers will be faced with a larger number of operating models - from classic batch processing to interactive computing and urgent computing. Regardless of whether, in the future, classic data centers whose main task is high-performance computing will merge with data centers whose main task is high-performance data analysis, or go their separate ways, both must face the challenge of extreme scaling. The management, storage, analysis, fusion, and processing, as well as visualization, of huge amounts of data from research, business, and social media will be the key to an emerging data-driven science, economy and society. The ability to scale to the extreme will therefore open the door to exascale computing and big data by making the challenge manageable.