Development of technology and computer architecture – from 1-processor serial computers to supercomputers
On October 26, 2021 the third lecture of our „Supercomputing in science“ series took place on the premises of the Computational centre of the Slovak Academy of Sciences Doc. Šperka, who is also responsible for the Computer museum, showed development of computer architectures and it’s components, such as CPU, GPU and RAM.
Computational power increased thanks to new technologies and innovations in semiconductor device fabrication and enabled doubling the number of components per integrated circuit every two years – this trend is described by the Moore’s law. However, we are now approaching physical limits in this area.
Another way of speeding up calculations is to use parallel approach, supported by today’s supercomputer architectures, including high-speed interconnecting network. Doc. Šperka described the history from the first parallel vector computers and Cray-1 supercomputer up to modern supercomputers.
Lecture series is a joint activity of the Computer museum COO SAS and National Competence Center for HPC. NCC, as the primary contact point for HPC in Slovakia, covers, among other things, educational and dissemination activities in this area.
You can watch the recording of the event on Facebook and YouTube and you can already register for our next lectures. Schedule and registration:
- 10. novembra 2021 o 17:00 – Operation systems in multiprocessor clusters
Dušan Bernát (Faculty of mathematics, physics and informatics, Comenius University) - November 23, 17:00 - Short guide to software parallelization
Jaroslav Suchánek (Biomedical Research Center, SAS) - December 7, 17:00 - Federated distributed computing
Ladislav Hluchý (Institute of Informatics SAS) - December 21, 17:00 - Modelling of 2D systems properties using the Quantum Monte Carlo methods
Ivan Štich (Institute of Physics SAS)
More information about the series
Meeting with Michal Valko, expert on large language models 15 Jul - The National Supercomputing Centre and the National Competence Centre for HPC, represented by Lucia Malíčková, met with prominent Slovak scientist Michal Valko, who is among the world’s leading experts in artificial intelligence and machine learning. They discussed opportunities for future collaboration, with a particular focus on leveraging Slovakia’s HPC capacities to support advanced research in large language models and algorithms that require minimal human feedback.
Data, Theology and HPC: A Collaboration Seeking Paths to Understanding 8 Jul - Continuing our collaboration with the Faculty of Theology at Trnava University!
The National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) and the National Competence Centre for HPC will continue their collaboration with the Faculty of Theology at Trnava University in 2025. Following a successful joint study that demonstrated the potential of artificial intelligence and high-performance computing in the analysis of religious texts, representatives of both institutions met again to identify new areas and opportunities for future joint projects.
Digital Twins of Society: HPC-Powered Simulations 25 Jun - Join us for a thought-provoking webinar exploring how artificial intelligence and multi-agent simulation technologies are helping researchers understand and predict complex societal dynamics. This session brings together leading experts in cultural cybernetics, cognitive modeling, and national-scale digital twin simulations.