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Finding the answer to the world’s most pressing issues rests on one crucial capability: high performance computing (HPC). With HPC, complex questions that have puzzled humankind for centuries are being unraveled at record speeds–such as unlocking mysteries of the universe, finding cures for diseases, sequencing DNA, and mitigating the impacts of climate change.
The supercomputers that power HPC, however, require more and more energy to operate. For instance, the power consumption of the world’s fastest supercomputer rose from 7.9MW in 2012 to 29.9MW in 2022. It’s no wonder that–per a recent study commissioned by Dell Technologies, Intel and NVIDIA–HPC operators have elevated the importance of sustainability to the number two priority, even surpassing price.
We applaud and support the efforts of HPC operators to improve sustainability. That means we must collectively and continuously work to manage HPC’s power requirements in areas where we can have a measurable impact. There are three ways to do this:
Deploying Energy-Efficient Hardware
The Hyperion Research study found three geo-specific motivations for the heightened prioritization of sustainability in HPC deployments. These motivations help shape geo-specific conversations about sustainability. As depicted in the figure below,