D-INFK news channel

The term "high-​performance computer" already implies a high energy demand. Energy efficiency is therefore a central consideration in the procurement and use of supercomputers at the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS).

The flagship supercomputer of the CSCS, "Piz Daint", needs to be replaced. CSCS Director Thomas Schulthess explains in an interview why the new computer is so special.

A group of scientists is creating a digital twin of our planet to simulate the Earth system in future. Professor Torsten Hoefler from the Institute for High Performance Computing Systems is one of the researchers showing how this can be achieved.

Two research groups from ETH Zurich have developed a method that can simulate nanoelectronics devices and their properties realistically, quickly, and efficiently. This offers a ray of hope for the industry and data centre operators alike, both of which are struggling with the (over)heating that comes with increasingly small and powerful transistors - and with the high resulting electricity costs for cooling.

Computer scientist Torsten Hoefler is the winner of this year’s Latsis Prize awarded by ETH Zurich. His Scalable Parallel Computing Laboratory is one of the few laboratories to combine theory and application in the field of high-​performance computing. Although mentors warned him against uniting these two aspects, it is precisely by doing so that he has now achieved his success.