HPC Accelerator Program

Accelerators are co-processing components containing massive numbers of functional units, together with memory and control systems that can be added to computers to speed up of applications. Accelerators are similar to turbochargers in an automobile with the purpose of increasing the speed of an application with a low incremental use in power, for faster time to business, engineering, or scientific outcomes.

Now that clock speeds are improving only slowly for process technology reasons, microprocessor vendors propose to offer improved performance by increasing the number of cores per chip. This approach does not automatically enable microprocessors to increase application performance at the rates we’ve come to expect. Therefore, many vendors and users are proposing alternative technologies such as General Purpose Graphical Processing Units (GPGPUs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), and custom ASICs that will deliver substantial increases in application performance on industry standard platforms.

The accelerator project is a hands-on, on-going effort to investigate various acceleration technologies for HPC applications and benchmark them to determine which ones are most beneficial for HPC customers. We are also collaborating with software tool vendors to help ensure their products work well in the HP HPC environment. The program delivers trusted advice on how and when to use accelerators and tested and qualified accelerators in ProLiant platforms.