Grids@SC004:

CHIARO'S WALLACH ON SC04 'FUTURE OF SUPERCOMPUTING' PANEL

Chiaro Networks' Steven J. Wallach, the company's vice president of technology and a luminary in the field of supercomputers, is a member of a panel announcing results and discussing a report on "The Future of Supercomputing." The panel, also called "The Future of Supercomputing," will be held at 8:30 am on Nov. 12, the last day of SC2004, the High Performance Computing, Networking and Storage Conference.

The Future of Supercomputing report presents the results of a study, begun in 2003, sponsored by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB). Wallach is one of 18 experts in computer and computational science from across industry, academia and national laboratories who have been conducting the study.

"People are sometimes surprised that a supercomputing expert like me now works for a company that makes networking equipment -- albeit a new class of super- routers -- but I always point out that today's telecommunications networks are really the supercomputers of tomorrow, thanks to Grid computing technologies and the convergence of computing and communications," said Wallach. "The Future of Supercomputing report addresses the future of supercomputing and the design of high- performance systems. Personally, I believe that many of these systems will be Grid-enabled, and thus require extremely high-performance communications systems."

The CSTB report on The Future of Supercomputing will answer questions such as: What is the current state of high-performance computing, both in the U.S. and internationally? What innovations are "in the pipeline" to improve that state? What are the driving applications that require supercomputing today? How can we invest to ensure future leadership in high-performance computing?