https://news.mixi.jp/view_news.pl?id=7107510&media_id=32
September 12, 2022 08:21 ITmedia NEWS
Photo Mr. Satoshi Matsuoka, Director of RIKEN Center for Computational Science |
The intersection of supercomputers and gaming-related technologies will lead to the development of society. "CEDEC2022" was held by the Computer Entertainment Association (CESA) from August 23rd to 25th. The keynote speech on the final day was given by Mr. Satoshi Matsuoka, director of the Computational Science Research Center at RIKEN, who was active as a game engineer when he was a student.
Mr. Matsuoka is one of the key people leading the development of supercomputers in Japan. In April, he was awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon for his achievements in computer science research. In his lecture, he touched on his own career and the history of supercomputer development, and encouraged the audience by saying that the activities of game engineers could lead to innovations that support social change.
●The development policy of supercomputers is to focus on the power of a group rather than the performance of a single rider.
Matsuoka first explained the history of the evolution of supercomputers, along with the process of evolution of personal computers (PCs) that use microprocessors. PCs began to spread around the same time as the Cray-1, which was evaluated as a masterpiece of early supercomputers, but there was, of course, a big difference between the two.
Mr. Matsuoka himself confirms the size of the difference. When comparing the Cray-1 with the 8-bit PC "Basic Master" (Hitachi) at the time, "a program written in BASIC is a million times faster, and an assembler (low-level language) (with an awareness of hardware behavior) Even if we wrote a more complicated program, there was a performance difference of about 10,000 times."
At that time, microprocessors and PCs were able to guarantee real-time performance in the world of simple computer games in the early days, but they were not at a level that could be used for scientific calculations such as physics simulations.
However, as microprocessors became more and more powerful, the direction of supercomputer evolution changed from "making each machine faster" to "increasing the number of machines." A technology was established to achieve high-speed processing using a large-scale parallel computer with microprocessors arranged side by side. The current supercomputer is an extension of that.
Developed "Pinball" with the late Nintendo president, Mr. Iwata
Reflecting on his career, Matsuoka explained, "I was an early gamer and game developer in the 1970s." In the 1980s, when he was a student at the University of Tokyo, he developed the family computer game "Pinball" together with the late Satoru Iwata, who later joined Nintendo and served as president.
The experience of attempting physical simulations using assemblers within the performance constraints of microprocessors at the time was one of the primary experiences as a researcher leading the development of supercomputers.
After that, he engaged in basic research on parallel processing systems at the University of Tokyo, and after transferring to the Tokyo Institute of Technology, all members of the laboratory built a computer that paralleled general-purpose CPUs, and eventually it became a supercomputer. Achieve results that enter the world ranking “TOP500”.
At the time, Tokyo Tech had introduced a manufacturer-made supercomputer for research purposes, but the performance of the supercomputer built by the laboratory itself surpassed its performance. In collaboration with NEC and Sun Microsystems, "TSUBAME 1.0" was released in 2006.
During the four-and-a-half-year operation period from 2006, the supercomputer in Japan received the highest rating in the TOP500 for four consecutive terms, attracting attention as the world's top-level information infrastructure. By the way, TSUBAME3.0 is currently in operation.
● Allowing everyone, not just experts, to use the power of supercomputers
Mr. Matsuoka's belief in the series of supercomputer development leading up to TSUBAME was not to adopt a dedicated architecture, but to "build based on a general-purpose platform including software."
Improvements in computer calculation speed are not simply about obtaining calculation results quickly, but rather, they can model a wide range of complex physical phenomena that could not be visualized before, and make games more graphical and realistic. Matsuoka emphasizes that the essential value is opening up the possibility of providing "new experiences", such as being able to
In order to connect the evolution of supercomputers to such value, Mr. Matsuoka emphasized, "It is very important that many people, not just experts, can use the power of supercomputers."
He also pointed out that this trend is common to the game industry. "Gaming platforms used to be very special, but PC games, of course, PlayStation and Xbox, are now being developed based on cutting-edge but extremely versatile platforms," he explained.
He argued that the existence of a general-purpose platform will grow the software ecosystem and expand the frontage for providing new experiences to users.
● “Fugaku” widely used to solve social issues
Mr. Matsuoka is currently leading the development of supercomputers at RIKEN, and most recently developed "Fugaku" jointly with Fujitsu. In 2020, Fugaku took the top spot in four supercomputer performance rankings, including the TOP500. In 2022, although the top position in the TOP500 was surrendered, it has maintained the top position in other major rankings and continues to play an active role as the world's top level supercomputer.
Mr. Matsuoka's convictions are fully reflected in the development of Fugaku. Developed based on a general-purpose architecture, it not only runs conventional applications dedicated to supercomputers, but can also be applied to solve a wide range of social issues. He says, "It is precisely because of this national project that we were able to promote high-risk development with the lofty goal of being able to use a wide range of applications and aiming for the world's top performance evaluation through benchmark tests."
It is said that Fugaku is already promoting utilization in various situations in order to widely return such results to society. It is widely known that the simulation of the droplets and aerosols of the new coronavirus at Fugaku was useful in considering measures against infectious diseases, and has been highly evaluated internationally.
The ``COVID-19 droplet and aerosol diffusion model construction'', which a joint research team such as RIKEN worked on using Fugaku, won the ``Covid- 19 Special Research Award”.
However, Mr. Matsuoka said, "It's a pity that it's not being communicated well, but in reality, we need to create digital twins of various social situations, such as hospitals, schools, trains, airplanes, taxis, theaters, karaoke boxes, and izakayas. We are conducting simulations while interacting with experts in the field, and are using them to consider and decide on infectious disease countermeasures."
He emphasized that Fugaku has more practical value for solving social issues than conventional supercomputers.
● We expect game engineers to create new worlds
How will this evolution of supercomputers be reflected in the game industry? Mr. Matsuoka thinks that the fusion of the two will progress with the keyword of digital twin. Fugaku has about 160,000 total nodes (in units of the number of servers), but it is said that the performance of a single node of Fugaku is almost the same as that of a PlayStation 5 game machine, for example. Both supercomputers and games overlap with each other in terms of the advanced technologies, platforms, and software ecosystems used.
“For example, NVIDIA originally combined game technology with physics simulation to create a virtual space development platform called Omniverse. By combining the graphic technology and technology related to interactivity, we can expect the development and leap of the Metaverse and Digital Twin.” (Mr. Matsuoka)
To the game engineers and aspiring engineers who watched the lecture, he concluded by saying, "I hope you will create a new world where supercomputers and gaming converge."
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