Jaime Leverton is CEO of Hut 8 Mining.
The pandemic helped many outside of the technology sector understand and appreciate the incredible ability of high-performance computing (HPC) to help more quickly solve complex, real-world problems. I believe the turning point was when the White House announced the Covid-19 High-Performance Computing Consortium to provide researchers with powerful HPC to perform model simulations and calculations in the fight to stop the disease.
The ability to process data and calculations almost “one million times faster than the fastest commodity desktop, laptop or server systems” gives HPC huge potential across industries. This has made HPC crucial for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), for it enables faster training of complex models and improves the accuracy of predictions.
While HPC and quantum computing are often discussed together, quantum computing (where multiple solutions are simultaneously applied to a desired outcome) is likely irrelevant to the average business owner. I believe that HPC is, however, highly applicable to small and midsize businesses, with its ability to help them run faster and more effectively.
The Gap Between Recognized Importance And Implementation Of HPC
As access to large-scale computing capabilities expands, HPC is transforming fields from sociology, economics, energy and travel—although I don’t think as quickly as it could. My company recently commissioned a survey of 1,000 American and Canadian IT decision-makers, revealing a significant gap between the recognized importance of HPC and its implementation within their organizations.
For example, even though 90% of respondents rated the technology as “important,” implementation rates fell far short of that. As with any new technology, multiple factors are at play.
First, there is the well-known technical talent gap (significantly amplified with emerging technologies). Tech sector layoffs may have dominated the headlines, but as a recent Deloitte survey explains, finding and keeping talent for senior technical roles like systems architects, cybersecurity specialists and those requiring AI-related skills can be difficult. This difficulty in keeping specialists can impede a company’s progress on technical upgrades or projects.
Benefits Of HPC
I find that a lack of awareness about HPC’s ability to help companies stay competitive and support the implementation of new technologies is another reason for the adoption discrepancy. Admittedly, it can be challenging to keep pace with trends in advanced technologies. Still, regardless of industry or job title, it’s important for business leaders to understand the benefits of HPC, which include:
• Better real-time data analysis. With enhanced efficiency and productivity, businesses complete tasks that used to take weeks or months in a matter of hours or minutes, leading to faster innovation and time-to-market for products and services.
• Improved simulations and modeling. In aerospace, automotive and energy industries, simulations and sophisticated models can optimize design, improve performance and reduce development time.
• Personalized customer experiences. HPC facilitates real-time data analysis, allowing businesses to offer personalized customer experiences. In e-commerce, HPC can analyze customer behavior and preferences, leading to targeted recommendations and improved customer satisfaction.
• Optimization of supply chain and logistics. HPC can improve supply chain operations by analyzing data from various sources, predicting demand and finding potential bottlenecks, leading to cost savings, reduced lead time and improved inventory management.
Harnessing HPC For Business Success
Key aspects to consider when examining how to help your organization adopt or better leverage HPC include:
1. Investing In Infrastructure
To unlock its full potential, businesses must invest in robust hardware and software infrastructure. This may involve setting up on-premises supercomputers or using cloud-based HPC solutions to accommodate varying computational needs.
It’s important to understand the potential challenges of investing in HPC infrastructure, though. Data center-ready space, appropriate power, redundancy and cooling are often difficult to come by. Those building out new data centers face a two-year build-out, which supply chain issues could extend.
2. Focusing On Talent And Expertise
Building a skilled team of HPC experts is also essential. Recruiting data scientists, computational researchers and software engineers with HPC experience can drive innovation and maximize the benefits to your business operations. Alternatively, workplace learning and development experts agree that upskilling and reskilling existing tech teams are the most cost-effective and impactful ways to close this skill gap while keeping organizational familiarity.
Many companies are partnering with academic institutions to develop training courses to teach new skills across various roles. Others are having internal teams co-locate with outside infrastructure providers. Since HPC is rapidly evolving, creating situations where teams can collaborate and learn directly from others is one of the most effective ways to upskill.
3. Prioritizing Scalability And Flexibility
Business leaders looking to better accommodate changing computational demands can opt for scalable HPC solutions. Cloud-based HPC platforms offer the flexibility to scale resources, allowing businesses to optimize costs without compromising performance.
For companies reluctant to scale with cloud computing, co-location (which involves keeping physical hardware in an external data center away from the business) is another option. With co-location, the third-party data center looks after the infrastructure, cooling and network connectivity, but the business maintains full ownership of the infrastructure in the data center.
4. Investing In Data Management
Businesses can also look to invest in robust data storage solutions and implement data governance practices to help ensure the security and integrity of their valuable data assets.
Ownership and accountability are the foundation for data management and governance in a fast-growth environment. Ultimately, data governance is about building your organization’s internal framework for collecting, managing, securing and storing data.
5. Collaborating And Partnering With Others
Collaborating with HPC vendors, research institutions and industry can supply valuable insights and best practices for leveraging HPC in specific industries. I’ve seen how partnerships can lead to groundbreaking innovations and competitive advantage. Solid relationships also help minimize supply chain challenges.
Whether in-person or virtually, industry events, roundtables and conferences are some of the best ways to find and connect with new potential partners.
To thrive in this data-driven era, I believe that business leaders and founders should understand the impact of HPC and its potential. This includes investing in proper infrastructure and talent as well as establishing partnerships that can become foundational to innovation.
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