In case you didn't realise, Cray is building its SuperComputer in partners with AMD and competing directly with Intel. I don't see why this will bring more Intel to SuperComputer.
I'm not sure I'd say Cray are competing with Intel. The DOE is buying three Exascale computers as part of a $1.8B effort. Their procurement plans called for diversity in architectures and to spread the risk across multiple vendors. Intel won the first systems Aurora using it’s processors and soon to be released GPU, with Cray as a subcontractor; the systems will be based on Cray’s Shasta design and use their Slingshot interconnect. Cray won the second system Frontier, using AMD’s EPYC processor + Radeon Instinct GPUs and will also use Cray’s Shasta and Slingshot. A third systems is yet to be awarded, which some believe will go to IBM using their Power processors and Nvidia GPUs.
Power and x86, for example, is diversity. Fundamentally different architectures is diversity.
Two x86 variants is very weak diversity but at least AMD's design decisions are different enough to protect them from some of the Intel vulnerabilities.
This sounds like a bias statement - stating Intel vulnerabilities - you realize Intel Supercomputer solution uses new systems with hardware fixes for Spectre/Meltdown #@##
How do you not choke on your own noxious fanboy fumes? You posted this comment AFTER the newest Intel vulnerabilities were disclosed. Insanely dedicated to your shilling
They are choosing AMD for the GOOD computer and Intel gets the leftovers. Put THAT in your washer's spin cycle. That choice is almost assuredly because they are contractually obligated to use more than one vendor.
Comment like this is not called for and should be related - and totally not relative to this article Just for information Intel Cray based commuter is based on 10nm and not the old 14nm stuff..
The public names are Aurora, Frontier, and the third hasn't been released yet, but we know they're really called Balthasar, Melchior, and Caspar, don't we, Asuka?
This is ridiculous, when are the regulators going to wake up. not just US, where the fok are the EU regulators, Japan, Canada, China, rest of the world. Why is this being allowed.
we are sitting debating whether to break up facebook. we can't even stop duopolies merging into monopolies. WTF ????
I am curious as to what regulators will be doing. Cray is more of a system design and fabric company. This does overlap with HPE as they of course are a large system vendor but they also have several different fabrics in their portfolio. NUMAlink was inherited by their SGI acquisition and also Gen Z (which seemingly came out of the research for "The Machine").
There is plenty of competition still on the platform side with companies like IBM, Dell and SuperMicro doing hardware. Rather it is the fabric side that is consolidating as Mellonix is the other giant in this space and they were absorbed by nVidia recently. The landscape is looking more and more like the available fabric will be tied to another vendor's offerings and not freely interchangeable.
(And yes, I'm ignoring Ethernet as that is too high latency or too low bandwidth or too expensive for the HCP space.)
I was at SC18 last year and the exhibition floor was packed with vendors. Dell, Lenovo, Penguin, SuperMicro, IBM, Atipa, Fujitsu, just to name a few off the top of my head, not to mention the literally dozens of smaller vendors. How you can consider HPE acquiring Cray a monopoly is beyond me. Maybe an oligarchy if you really want to stretch the definition, but certainly not a monopoly.
It'll be interesting to see how this goes through regulators due to HPE's other recent purchase of SGI. That is a massive amount of consolidation happening for the HPC sector and the DoE has always wanted to keep the playing field diverse.
The other thing is that this likely won't have an impact on GenZ as HPE was starting to push this before they purchase and obviously before they purchased Cray.
Well that is assuming the market allows it. As far as I can see Both SGI and Cray are barely scrapping by. I don't see any obvious reason why this is bad.
@Kevin G..."That is a massive amount of consolidation happening for the HPC sector"
FWIW: if you look at the top 500 supercomptuers Cray was the #4 vendor with 9.8% of the top 500 systems and HPE was #5 with 9.2%. Merging the two will make them the number two vendor behind Lenovo who has 28% of the systems. see https://www.top500.org/statistics/list/
Cray also has other items on that list like Cray/Hitatic - not sure where the Cray/Intel based platform is in list, and Cray/AMD is new so it will not be on list.
I am also curious about Lenovo and IBM part on list.
As far as I know, the "Lenovo/IBM" refers to IBM xSeries predating IBM's exit from the x86 market. Power systems are simply marked IBM.
The Cray/Hitachi entries are the pair of Cray XC50 (Xeon) systems purchased by the Japanese Meteorological Agency with Hitachi as a VAR, which is not an uncommon arrangement in the Japanese market.
There is also Cray Aurora system which is different than the Fonierr system which my guess is that they are use for two different purposes. May just me, but the Fontier system images above looks very similar to Aurora image picture earlier announce.
There is no indication of cancelations of Aurora or Fontier systems. I just feel the Fontier systems coming right after the new Aurora system announcement was a me tooo promotion.
SarahKerrigan according to HStewart.. its ok for intel to announce something like this.. but if amd does it.. its nothing but a PR announcement...
HStewart : FYI intel has done the " me too " thing as well... intel COPIED amd's x86 64 bit extensions, cause they HAD to as the industry didnt want to have to deal with 2 versions of x86 64 bit, and, they COPIED amd with the on die memory controller... so enough with the " me too " crap you are accusing AMD of doing....
See, that's okay. Intel is COPYING something that AMD STOLE from them in the first place. Second-source manufacturing agreements from almost half a century ago are clearly evidence of criminal enterprise, as opposed to "common business practice half a century ago".
the problem is simple: over time, for every problem, a most effective solution emerges. in the case of microprocessor cpu, there's the added issue of market share driven monopoly. no one, sane anyway, ever thought X86 was the best ISA at the beginning or ever. but 1-2-3 and DOS forced us into the M$/Intel world. once that base was established, extensions had to be optimized against it. so, in time, functionality coalesced. and, last time I checked, nothing in maths can be patented.
Wasn't the DEC Alpha the first CPU with an on die memory controller? Of course they will copy each other at times and AMD have had some great firsts, at least with x86. But when you consider AMD are riding on the coat tails of Intel's architecture the whole copying thing becomes somewhat moot. It's just good to have AMD back on form after a bleak period; the competition is good.
@smilingcrow..."Wasn't the DEC Alpha the first CPU with an on die memory controller?"
I'm not sure if DEC was first, HP, Sun and ARM also had on die memory controllers on their processors in the 90's...also Intel created the 386SL (a more power efficient 386 for laptops) in the early 90's and it had the memory controller on die.
Lets see, Compaq purchased DEC Computer (Digital Equipment Corporation), who manufactured what were called, Mini-Computers (VAX), and who were "WAY" ahead on processor technology, including both 64 and even 128 bit processors and software, way back in the '90's, and broke them up and sold off much of their advanced technology, destroying them, then HP buys Compaq, most likely for what they had in regards to DEC technology, and outside of using their name for a while, destroyed them. Then HP went and bought up Voodoo Gaming Computers, a competitor to Alienware at the time, and destroyed them, and now they are buying up Cray, and as we have seen in the past, suck up their technology and knowledge, and selling off what they don't need, eventually destroying them as well. :(
HPE also bought SGI whose technology its the core of the SuperDome Flex line of ultra high end servers. The second biggest negative* I can cite its that under HPE, the NUMALink architecture isn't being leveraged to its fullest as it is supposed to scale to 256 sockets. This isn't that dire due to the number of sales beyond 32 socket. In addition, such system bump up against various x86 architectural limits like physically addressable memory (64 TB currently), and total core count (4096).
*For those wondering what the biggest negative is: pricing.
As I understand from wikipedia, there have been three companies named Cray, not one continuous lineage. 1972 Cray Research founded by Seymour Cray 1989 Cray Computers formed by Seymour Cray 1995 Cray Computers went bankrupt 1996 Cray Research bought by SGI, who sold the Superservers business to Sun Microsystems. 1999 SGI forms the Cray Research Business. 2000 Tera Computer bought the Cray Reseach business from SGI, and became Cray Inc. 2016 HPE acquires SGI. (2020 HPE plan to acquire Cray Inc.)
(Did SGI and Cray Research not get along culturally? I hope HPE doesn't get indigestion.)
the real truth is that computers named 'Cray' stopped being built on bespoke hardware about 2004 when it adopted AMD hardware. 2008 had them do Intel as well. so, no, there's no 'diversity' on display. Cray, for some years, has been doing original work with interconnects.
Interconnects and system design, as you mention, are bespoke. Processors, at present, are not.
The X2 vector computer did indeed go away (around 2006, per my recollection?) without a replacement - but the aggressively multithreaded XMT processor (from the Tera side of the house) continued through something like 2013. Far more recent.
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eva02langley - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
This is not a good news. More Intel supercomputer on 14nm...ksec - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
In case you didn't realise, Cray is building its SuperComputer in partners with AMD and competing directly with Intel. I don't see why this will bring more Intel to SuperComputer.ilt24 - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
@ksec..."and competing directly with Intel"I'm not sure I'd say Cray are competing with Intel. The DOE is buying three Exascale computers as part of a $1.8B effort. Their procurement plans called for diversity in architectures and to spread the risk across multiple vendors. Intel won the first systems Aurora using it’s processors and soon to be released GPU, with Cray as a subcontractor; the systems will be based on Cray’s Shasta design and use their Slingshot interconnect. Cray won the second system Frontier, using AMD’s EPYC processor + Radeon Instinct GPUs and will also use Cray’s Shasta and Slingshot. A third systems is yet to be awarded, which some believe will go to IBM using their Power processors and Nvidia GPUs.
Oxford Guy - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
Calling two x86 processors diversity is a stretch but I do know that that's their idea of it.Oxford Guy - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
Power and x86, for example, is diversity. Fundamentally different architectures is diversity.Two x86 variants is very weak diversity but at least AMD's design decisions are different enough to protect them from some of the Intel vulnerabilities.
Oxford Guy - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
It's also interesting to me that I haven't seen anyone else bring up this "diversity" problem. People simply act as if two x86 processors is enough.HStewart - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
This sounds like a bias statement - stating Intel vulnerabilities - you realize Intel Supercomputer solution uses new systems with hardware fixes for Spectre/Meltdown #@##arashi - Saturday, May 18, 2019 - link
You wish.Then again when one's job is dependent on misinformation one must do what one must.
FullmetalTitan - Wednesday, May 22, 2019 - link
How do you not choke on your own noxious fanboy fumes? You posted this comment AFTER the newest Intel vulnerabilities were disclosed. Insanely dedicated to your shillingRealBeast - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
It's about all the diversity that you'll get when two or three giant US companies lobby extensively/make campaign donations for government contracts.HStewart - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
Cray is building two different supercomputers - one with Intel and one with AMD. They are not choosing AMD over Intel.Lord of the Bored - Saturday, May 18, 2019 - link
They are choosing AMD for the GOOD computer and Intel gets the leftovers. Put THAT in your washer's spin cycle.That choice is almost assuredly because they are contractually obligated to use more than one vendor.
Irata - Sunday, May 19, 2019 - link
They are doing so now. If you look at how appreciative OEM seem to be of diversity wrt their x86 CPU suppliers, eva does have a point.Seems like OEMs' management values short term incentive checks over a more competitive supplier market long term.
HStewart - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
Comment like this is not called for and should be related - and totally not relative to this articleJust for information Intel Cray based commuter is based on 10nm and not the old 14nm stuff..
Korguz - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
" Comments like this is not called for " just like most of your negative or bashing comments towards AMD....Ashinjuka - Saturday, May 18, 2019 - link
The public names are Aurora, Frontier, and the third hasn't been released yet, but we know they're really called Balthasar, Melchior, and Caspar, don't we, Asuka?azfacea - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
This is ridiculous, when are the regulators going to wake up. not just US, where the fok are the EU regulators, Japan, Canada, China, rest of the world. Why is this being allowed.we are sitting debating whether to break up facebook. we can't even stop duopolies merging into monopolies. WTF ????
Kevin G - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
I am curious as to what regulators will be doing. Cray is more of a system design and fabric company. This does overlap with HPE as they of course are a large system vendor but they also have several different fabrics in their portfolio. NUMAlink was inherited by their SGI acquisition and also Gen Z (which seemingly came out of the research for "The Machine").There is plenty of competition still on the platform side with companies like IBM, Dell and SuperMicro doing hardware. Rather it is the fabric side that is consolidating as Mellonix is the other giant in this space and they were absorbed by nVidia recently. The landscape is looking more and more like the available fabric will be tied to another vendor's offerings and not freely interchangeable.
(And yes, I'm ignoring Ethernet as that is too high latency or too low bandwidth or too expensive for the HCP space.)
cybort - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
They have different business actually...Shane H - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
I was at SC18 last year and the exhibition floor was packed with vendors. Dell, Lenovo, Penguin, SuperMicro, IBM, Atipa, Fujitsu, just to name a few off the top of my head, not to mention the literally dozens of smaller vendors. How you can consider HPE acquiring Cray a monopoly is beyond me. Maybe an oligarchy if you really want to stretch the definition, but certainly not a monopoly.bryanlarsen - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
Are they going to adopt the Cray name so we can get rid of this ridiculous HP Inc vs HPE confusion?Arsenica - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
Most likely HPE is going to kill the Cray brand as they did with SGI.Lord of the Bored - Saturday, May 18, 2019 - link
And Compaq, and Apollo, and Comdisco, and... quite a lot of companies.(I include Comdisco because it is a hilarious name)
Kevin G - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
It'll be interesting to see how this goes through regulators due to HPE's other recent purchase of SGI. That is a massive amount of consolidation happening for the HPC sector and the DoE has always wanted to keep the playing field diverse.The other thing is that this likely won't have an impact on GenZ as HPE was starting to push this before they purchase and obviously before they purchased Cray.
ksec - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
Well that is assuming the market allows it. As far as I can see Both SGI and Cray are barely scrapping by. I don't see any obvious reason why this is bad.ilt24 - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
@Kevin G..."That is a massive amount of consolidation happening for the HPC sector"FWIW: if you look at the top 500 supercomptuers Cray was the #4 vendor with 9.8% of the top 500 systems and HPE was #5 with 9.2%. Merging the two will make them the number two vendor behind Lenovo who has 28% of the systems. see https://www.top500.org/statistics/list/
HStewart - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
Cray also has other items on that list like Cray/Hitatic - not sure where the Cray/Intel based platform is in list, and Cray/AMD is new so it will not be on list.I am also curious about Lenovo and IBM part on list.
SarahKerrigan - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
As far as I know, the "Lenovo/IBM" refers to IBM xSeries predating IBM's exit from the x86 market. Power systems are simply marked IBM.The Cray/Hitachi entries are the pair of Cray XC50 (Xeon) systems purchased by the Japanese Meteorological Agency with Hitachi as a VAR, which is not an uncommon arrangement in the Japanese market.
HStewart - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
There is also Cray Aurora system which is different than the Fonierr system which my guess is that they are use for two different purposes. May just me, but the Fontier system images above looks very similar to Aurora image picture earlier announce.There is no indication of cancelations of Aurora or Fontier systems. I just feel the Fontier systems coming right after the new Aurora system announcement was a me tooo promotion.
ilt24 - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
@HStewart..."May just me, but the Fontier system images above looks very similar to Aurora image"I think that's because they are both going to be Cray Shasta systems. see... https://www.cray.com/products/computing/shasta
"I just feel the Fontier systems coming right after the new Aurora system announcement was a me tooo promotion."
Not at all, the DOE is buying a total of three systems, these are the first two. The third will probably be IBM power based.
SarahKerrigan - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
Are you implying that the US government scheduled a contract award purely to be a marketing boost to AMD?Korguz - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
SarahKerrigan according to HStewart.. its ok for intel to announce something like this.. but if amd does it.. its nothing but a PR announcement...HStewart : FYI intel has done the " me too " thing as well... intel COPIED amd's x86 64 bit extensions, cause they HAD to as the industry didnt want to have to deal with 2 versions of x86 64 bit, and, they COPIED amd with the on die memory controller... so enough with the " me too " crap you are accusing AMD of doing....
Lord of the Bored - Saturday, May 18, 2019 - link
See, that's okay. Intel is COPYING something that AMD STOLE from them in the first place. Second-source manufacturing agreements from almost half a century ago are clearly evidence of criminal enterprise, as opposed to "common business practice half a century ago".FunBunny2 - Sunday, May 19, 2019 - link
"Intel is COPYING something that AMD STOLE "the problem is simple: over time, for every problem, a most effective solution emerges. in the case of microprocessor cpu, there's the added issue of market share driven monopoly. no one, sane anyway, ever thought X86 was the best ISA at the beginning or ever. but 1-2-3 and DOS forced us into the M$/Intel world. once that base was established, extensions had to be optimized against it. so, in time, functionality coalesced. and, last time I checked, nothing in maths can be patented.
smilingcrow - Saturday, May 18, 2019 - link
Wasn't the DEC Alpha the first CPU with an on die memory controller?Of course they will copy each other at times and AMD have had some great firsts, at least with x86.
But when you consider AMD are riding on the coat tails of Intel's architecture the whole copying thing becomes somewhat moot.
It's just good to have AMD back on form after a bleak period; the competition is good.
ilt24 - Saturday, May 18, 2019 - link
@smilingcrow..."Wasn't the DEC Alpha the first CPU with an on die memory controller?"I'm not sure if DEC was first, HP, Sun and ARM also had on die memory controllers on their processors in the 90's...also Intel created the 386SL (a more power efficient 386 for laptops) in the early 90's and it had the memory controller on die.
arashi - Saturday, May 18, 2019 - link
Don't expect too much comprehension from Intel marketing when his job depends on his misinformation guised under misunderstanding.GoHack314 - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
Lets see, Compaq purchased DEC Computer (Digital Equipment Corporation), who manufactured what were called, Mini-Computers (VAX), and who were "WAY" ahead on processor technology, including both 64 and even 128 bit processors and software, way back in the '90's, and broke them up and sold off much of their advanced technology, destroying them, then HP buys Compaq, most likely for what they had in regards to DEC technology, and outside of using their name for a while, destroyed them. Then HP went and bought up Voodoo Gaming Computers, a competitor to Alienware at the time, and destroyed them, and now they are buying up Cray, and as we have seen in the past, suck up their technology and knowledge, and selling off what they don't need, eventually destroying them as well. :(Oxford Guy - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
Yes, HP's track record doesn't invite a lot of optimism.Kevin G - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
HPE also bought SGI whose technology its the core of the SuperDome Flex line of ultra high end servers. The second biggest negative* I can cite its that under HPE, the NUMALink architecture isn't being leveraged to its fullest as it is supposed to scale to 256 sockets. This isn't that dire due to the number of sales beyond 32 socket. In addition, such system bump up against various x86 architectural limits like physically addressable memory (64 TB currently), and total core count (4096).*For those wondering what the biggest negative is: pricing.
GreenReaper - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
"Cray of course needs no introduction. [Paragraph of introduction follows.]" :-DMight have made more sense to introduce HPE, since *technically* they were only founded in 2015.
Gc - Friday, May 17, 2019 - link
As I understand from wikipedia, there have been three companies named Cray, not one continuous lineage.1972 Cray Research founded by Seymour Cray
1989 Cray Computers formed by Seymour Cray
1995 Cray Computers went bankrupt
1996 Cray Research bought by SGI, who sold the Superservers business to Sun Microsystems.
1999 SGI forms the Cray Research Business.
2000 Tera Computer bought the Cray Reseach business from SGI, and became Cray Inc.
2016 HPE acquires SGI.
(2020 HPE plan to acquire Cray Inc.)
(Did SGI and Cray Research not get along culturally? I hope HPE doesn't get indigestion.)
Lord of the Bored - Saturday, May 18, 2019 - link
"1996 Cray Research bought by SGI, who sold the Superservers business to Sun Microsystems."So you're saying HP is going to buy Oracle next, so they have all the Crays?
I'm okay with this. Someone needs to put Oracle out of our misery.
ilt24 - Saturday, May 18, 2019 - link
@Gc..."2016 HPE acquires SGI"note a company called Rackable acquired SGI's assets after SGI filed for chapter 11 in 2009 and then renamed themselves SGI.
FunBunny2 - Saturday, May 18, 2019 - link
the real truth is that computers named 'Cray' stopped being built on bespoke hardware about 2004 when it adopted AMD hardware. 2008 had them do Intel as well. so, no, there's no 'diversity' on display. Cray, for some years, has been doing original work with interconnects.SarahKerrigan - Saturday, May 18, 2019 - link
Interconnects and system design, as you mention, are bespoke. Processors, at present, are not.The X2 vector computer did indeed go away (around 2006, per my recollection?) without a replacement - but the aggressively multithreaded XMT processor (from the Tera side of the house) continued through something like 2013. Far more recent.