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Section: Partnerships and Cooperations
European Initiatives
FP7 Projects
Mont-Blanc project: European scalable and power efficient HPC platform based on low-power embedded technology
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Objectif: ICT-2011.9.13 Exa-scale computing, software and simulation
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Partner: BSC (Barcelone), Bull, ARM (UK), Julich (Germany), Genci, CINECA (Italy), CNRS (LIRMM, LIG)
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Abstract: There is a continued need for higher computing performance: scientific grand challenges, engineering, geophysics, bioinformatics, etc. However, energy is increasingly becoming one of the most expensive resources and the dominant cost item for running a large supercomputing facility. In fact, the total energy cost of a few years of operation can almost equal the cost of the hardware infrastructure. Energy efficiency is already a primary concern for the design of any computer system and it is unanimously recognized that Exascale systems will be strongly constrained by power.
The analysis of the performance of HPC systems since 1993 shows exponential improvements at the rate of one order of magnitude every 3 years: One petaflops was achieved in 2008, one exaflops is expected in 2020. Based on a 20 MW power budget, this requires an efficiency of 50 GFLOPS/Watt. However, the current leader in energy efficiency achieves only 1.7 GFLOPS/Watt. Thus, a 30x improvement is required.
In this project, the partners believe that HPC systems developed from today's energy-efficient solutions used in embedded and mobile devices are the most likely to succeed. As of today, the CPUs of these devices are mostly designed by ARM. However, ARM processors have not been designed for HPC, and ARM chips have never used in HPC systems before, leading to a number of significant challenges.
Network of Excellence in Wireless COMmunications
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Partner: CNIT (IT), Aalborg University (DK), Bilkent University (TK), CNRS (FR), CTTC (ES), IASA (GR), INOV (P), Poznan University of Technology (PL), Technion (IL), Technische Universitaet Dresden (D), University of Cambridge (UK), Université de Louvain (BE), OulunYliopisto (FIN), Technische Universitaet Wien (A).
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Abstract: The NEWCOM researchers will pursue long-term, interdisciplinary research on the most advanced aspects of wireless communications like Finding the Ultimate Limits of Communication Networks, Opportunistic and Cooperative Communications, Energy- and Bandwidth-Efficient Communications and Networking.
Collaborations in European Programs, except FP7
ESPON
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Abstract: The MESCAL project-team participates to the ESPON (European Spatial Planning Observation Network) http://www.espon.lu/ It is involved in the action 3.1 on tools for analysis of socio-economical data. This work is done in the consortium hypercarte including the laboratories LIG, Géographie-cité (UMR 8504) and RIATE (UMS 2414). The Hyperatlas tools have been applied to the European context in order to study spatial deviation indexes on demographic and sociological data at nuts 3 level.
CROWN
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Program: European Community and Greek General Secretariat for Research and Technology
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Project title: Optimal Control of Self Organized Wireless Networks
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Other partners: Thales, University of Thessaly, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens University of Economics and Business
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Abstract: Wireless networks are rapidly becoming highly complex systems with large numbers of heterogeneous devices interacting with each other, often in a harsh environment. In the absence of central control, network entities need to self-organize to reach an efficient operating state, while operating in a distributed fashion. Depending on whether the operating criteria are individual or global, nodes interact in an autonomic or coordinated way. Despite recent progress in autonomic networks, the fundamental understanding of the operational behaviour of large-scale networks is still lacking. This project will address these emergent network properties, by introducing new tools and concepts from other disciplines.
We will first analyze how imperfect network state information can be harvested and distributed efficiently through the network using machine learning techniques. We will design flexible methodologies to shape the competition between autonomous nodes for resources, with aim to maintain robust social optimality. Both cooperating and non-cooperating game-theoretic models will be used. We also consider networks with nodes coordinating to achieve a joint task, e.g., global optimization. Using algorithms inspired from statistical physics, we will address two representative paradigms in the context of wireless ad hoc networks, namely connectivity optimization and the localization of a network of primary sources from a sensor network.
Finally, we will explore delay tolerant networks as a case study of an emerging class of networks that, while sharing most of the characteristics of traditional autonomic or coordinated networks, they present unique challenges, due to the intermittency and constant fluctuations of the connectivity. We will study tradeoffs involving delay, the impact of mobility on information transfer, and the optimal usage of resources by using tools from information theory and stochastic evolution theory.
Collaborations with Major European Organizations
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University of Athens: Panayotis Mertikopoulos was an invited professor for 4 months.
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EPFL: Laboratoire pour les communications informatiques et leurs applications 2, Institut de systèmes de communication ISC, Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland). We collaborate with Jean-Yves Leboudec and Nicolas Gast on fluid limits.
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BCAM: Basque Center for Applied Mathematics, Bilbao (Spain). Bruno gaujal was invited to teach several time and collaborates with Jonatha Anselmi on perfect simulation.
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TU Wien: Research Group Parallel Computing, Technische Universität Wien (Austria). We collaborate with Sascha Hunold on experimental methodology and reproducibility of experiments in HPC.