(Mascha Tace/Shutterstock)
In response to our readers’ many questions on AI, displaying a mixture of pleasure and concern, we are going to quickly debut a collection of month-to-month articles on the standing of AI within the world HPC neighborhood and the trail towards AGI, synthetic basic intelligence. The collection’ main writer shall be BigDATAwire contributing editor Steve Conway, whose day job is as senior analyst with Intersect360 Analysis (prior stops at Cray Analysis and SGI).
Steve has intently tracked AI developments for over a decade, main HPC and AI research for presidency businesses around the globe, co-authoring with Johns Hopkins College Superior Physics Laboratory (JHUAPL) an AI primer for senior U.S. navy leaders and talking steadily on AI and associated subjects. On this kickoff interview, I ask Steve about plans for the collection.
BigDATAwire: Thanks, Steve, for taking the lead on this collection. AI is a fraught matter with a variety of customers and opinions. How are you approaching this?
Steve Conway: Humbly. It appears clear that AI winters are behind us and AI is right here to remain now, though progress might occur in spurts, together with shocking advances like China’s DeepSeek. I like Intel’s method, dividing the market right into a type of “AI gentle” for enterprise enterprise operations and the section I’ll deal with, frontier AI for superior use in HPC and sure hyperscale purposes. The collection doesn’t intention to be definitive; the purpose as an alternative is to put out a spread of present data and opinions on AI for the HPC-AI neighborhood to think about. Nobody has the ultimate tackle AI, so I additionally wish to encourage feedback and options alongside the best way at [email protected].
Steve Conway is a senior adviser at Intersect360 and a contributing editor at BigDATAwire
BDW: The place will your data come from?
Conway: I’ll depend on three important sources: first, every little thing I’ve learn and achieved in the course of the previous dozen years; second, worldwide market analysis and evaluation from our analyst staff at Intersect360 analysis; and above all, the various candid discussions I’ve had in latest months with main figures within the world HPC and hyperscale communities.
BDW: With all that in thoughts, the place does AI stand at present? Are you able to summarize the scenario right here?
Conway: I’ll attempt, Generative AI is common and helpful. It’s actually amped up pleasure about AI, nevertheless it’s early within the sport and synthetic basic intelligence, AGI, might be many years away by any strong definition. Definitions are one of many challenges we face. There’s no robust consensus definition of AGI, or intelligence itself, or explainability associated to at present’s important AI strategies. I believe it’s nonetheless helpful to speak in regards to the path towards AGI, even when we don’t know precisely what AGI appears to be like like. The collection will speak a good quantity about this path, beginning with views from main thinkers on the place issues stand at present and differing faculties of thought on what it is going to take to method or obtain AGI.
BDW: On the whole, the place do individuals suppose AI stands at present? I do know you’ll discover this extra deeply within the collection.
Conway: Folks typically agree that regardless of the spectacular talents of generative AI, we’re nonetheless largely confined to path issues, the place the human defines the purpose and the AI agent pursues the purpose. This method works with many scientific, engineering and enterprise issues. There are far fewer examples but of perception issues, the place the human can’t outline the purpose and the AI agent has to advance independently to a breakthrough answer. Folks typically agree that AI at present is generally confined to computable issues that may be approached with logic and isn’t adept at dealing with on a regular basis issues people deal with with heuristics, strategies that kinda-sorta work more often than not.
BDW: How is AI getting used within the worldwide HPC neighborhood?
El Capitan is primary on the TOP500 checklist
Conway: Almost all HPC websites are exploring AI and plenty of are beginning to use it in manufacturing. That’s no secret. However past that it is dependent upon the purposes, because it at all times has with essential new applied sciences within the HPC neighborhood. At one finish of the spectrum are legacy purposes in domains like automotive and aerospace, the place outcomes utilizing new know-how might should be validated and recertified, a course of that may take years. On the different finish are non-mission-critical jobs that may be assigned to AI rapidly. It varies rather a lot by area. Oil and fuel majors nonetheless tilt closely towards seismic processing utilizing conventional physics-based simulation, with AI serving to out in various vitality analysis. Plane firms inform me AI gained’t exchange pilots anytime quickly, however in gentle of the intense world pilot scarcity, some cockpit duties can in all probability be offloaded to AI. It is dependent upon the apps.
BDW: What are a number of the challenges you’ll focus on?
Conway: Intersect360 Analysis figures affirm that the AI market is way bigger than the HPC market. There’s concern, given the present scarcity of GPUs, that processor distributors may bow to the larger shopping for energy of hyperscalers and pay much less consideration to HPC wants reminiscent of FP64. There’s concern HPC websites may need much less capacity to barter costs for brand spanking new supercomputers. There’s concern that scientific and engineering customers may must be taught to do their work on machines designed for AI. A couple of HPC websites are already far alongside in that path.
BDW: How are HPC leaders feeling in regards to the scenario?
Conway: Amongst these my Intersect360 Analysis colleagues and I’ve talked with lately, I’d say attitudes range from cautious optimism to delicate pessimism. The optimists say the HPC neighborhood has made main know-how shifts earlier than, reminiscent of migrating apps from vector processors to x86. Pessimists have a tendency to fret extra about issues like AI probably changing HPC on the high of the IT meals chain and the monetary and different penalties of that diminished standing.
BDW: Are you able to say a bit extra in regards to the street forward for AI? How do individuals see AGI?
Conway: The key faculties of thought on AGI cut up alongside the strains of the centuries-old thoughts/physique debate, with some believing that technological progress alone shall be sufficient to get us there and others arguing {that a} main breakthrough shall be wanted to endow machines with “thoughts,” consciousness. The Cartesians appear to be within the minority at present.
BDW: Thanks, Steve. Wanting ahead to extra particulars within the articles that can seem about as soon as a month.
[wpsr_share_icons icons=”twitter,facebook,linkedin,reddit,email” icon_size=”40px” icon_bg_color=”” icon_shape=”circle” hover_effect=”opacity” sm_screen_width=”768″ lg_screen_action=”show” sm_screen_action=”show” page_url=”https://www.bigdatawire.com/2025/01/31/watch-for-new-bigdatawire-column-ai-today-and-tomorrow/” page_title=”Watch for New BigDATAwire Column: AI Today and Tomorrow” page_excerpt=”
In response to our readers’ many questions about AI, showing a mix of excitement and concern, we will soon debut a series of monthly articles on the status of AI in the global HPC community and the path toward AGI, artificial general intelligence. Read more…
” share_counter=””]
