The FPGA High Performance Computing Alliance (FHPCA) is continuing to promote Scotland as a hub of Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technology. The Alliance, run from the University of Edinburgh by the EPCC, draws on the expertise and vision of both Scottish and international companies and the support of Scottish Enterprise. Hardware and software developed by the Alliance were used to build the Maxwell supercomputer, launched earlier this year. This computer is not only substantially quicker than standard PCs but is far more energy efficient, meaning its environmental impact is also minimised.
The FHPCA has recently held a number of seminars to demonstrate the capabilities of the Maxwell supercomputer. Taking part in a Birds-of-a-Feather session at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC’07) in Dresden provided an opportunity to discuss and demonstrate the programmability of FPGAs for Application Developers.
The potential for utilising the technology within the oil and gas sector was highlighted at an Aberdeen event which featured a case study from OHM Surveys Ltd. The oil services company was one of the first firms to use Maxwell. Using one of the company’s codes for reservoir exploration proved a great success, significantly speeding up the process of data processing and the firm continues to work with Alliance partners.
Medical imaging technology also benefits greatly. Producing 3D images of a person’s face, used in surgery planning, traditionally took several minutes. By using Maxwell the process has been reduced to a few seconds.
However, the most spectacular results occurred when Maxwell turned its hand to running risk modelling codes used in the financial services industry. Mark Parsons, Commercial Director of EPCC explains: “We programmed up our own version of a code used to do risk calculations, and we had a very interesting experience. The other two codes sped up between 5 and 10 times when run on an FPGA. With this one we saw speed improvements of over 300 times.”
The Alliance is now speaking to a number of leading investment banks, some of whom have been conducting their own experiments with FPGAs.
It is not just these three sectors which would benefit from this Scottish innovation. Drug design, seismology and mobile telecoms are just some of the other areas which could see huge performance enhancements. A number of further seminars and forums are planned to maximise business opportunities.
Maxwell, currently in the running for the BCS IT Industry Awards 2007 for Best Use of Green Technology Project Award and the BT Flagship Award for Innovation, was designed and built by two Scottish firms, Nallatech and Alpha Data, and EPCC, the supercomputing centre at The University of Edinburgh. Although the team behind Maxwell want to see people buying the technology from the two SMEs, Mark added that Maxwell also exists “to allow companies to come and use it with their codes and understand whether it is going to be useful technology for them.”
For further information on the FHPCA events and activities, visit www.fhpca.org