@HPC Podcast Archives - OrionX.net - HPC News Bytes – 20240506

Episode Date: May 6, 2024

- ASML and US-China Trade Wars - Tik Tok Ban Bill in the US - Intersect360 HPC-AI Market Size in 2023 - Women in HPC at ISC24 [audio mp3="https://orionx.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/HPCNB_20240506.mp3"][/audio] The post HPC News Bytes – 20240506 appeared first on OrionX.net.

Welcome to HPC News Bites, a weekly show about important news in the world of supercomputing, AI, and other advanced technologies. Hi, everyone. Welcome to HPC News Bites. I'm Doug Black. Hi, Shaheen. No surprise, we're talking initially about the chip industry, specifically what you might call the metamachinery maker for advanced HPC AI chips.

That would be the vaunted Dutch company ASML, which, by the way, has become Europe's largest tech company. And it produces the extreme ultraviolet lithography systems used to produce chips dipping down into the five nanometer range and fewer. With advanced chips taking on such importance to the competitive standing of rival nations, the incoming CEO of ASML is caught between the US and China in a microchips-driven geopolitical clash. ASML's new CEO as of two months ago is Christophe Fouquet, who grew up at Applied Materials and KLA Tencore and has been at ASML for the past 16 years. He's taking the reins at an exciting time because ASML is the only game in town, but also a challenging time because the company is entangled in the trade war between the US and China.

As expected and predicted, the US last year pressured the Netherlands to block some, not all, of ASML's exports to Chinese manufacturers like SMIC in Shanghai. ASML has said such export controls would impact 10 to 15 percent of its sales to China. According to a story in Politico, ASML is hiring political lobbyists to push back against these export measures. Meanwhile, some people like ASML's outgoing CEO have said that cutting out China would only help it achieve tech sovereignty, but having seen images of ASML machines which can weigh more than 300,000 pounds and cost something like $350 million, catching up with ASML is not an easy task, and politicians may be quite okay with just the delay. Another aspect of the US-China rivalry,

and a rare issue with bipartisan support in Washington, is the seemingly endless clash surrounding TikTok, the short video app, which has hooked so many people around the world, including many young people in the US. Last week, President Biden signed a bill that forces the sale of TikTok or else ban the app in the U.S. It is important to note that the bill moved very fast and was approved by wide margins, 50 to 0 in the committee, 79 to 18 in the Senate, and 360 to 58 in the House. Banning an immensely popular app would be felt across the tech landscape and alienate many of its users. But supporters of the bill point to data privacy and social impact. They say TikTok's China-based ownership puts Americans' personal data at risk. And there's a growing concern that TikTok uses a

different recommendation engine in the U.S. than it does in China, allowing, if not meaning to, negatively impact young and old minds alike. TikTok says this bill that President Biden signed is a threat to First Amendment protections in the U.S. It promised a legal fight in a statement Wednesday, as it did when former President Trump tried to ban TikTok through an executive order which was overturned in the courts. If a sale is forced on TikTok, then there's talk it may be acquired by Microsoft or Oracle. But China might block a sale because of the value of the TikTok algorithm that powers the platform. If TikTok is eventually banned, then an analyst told Investors Business

Daily, quote, 170 million U.S. users, 3.3 trillion minutes, and roughly 8 to 14 billion in ad dollars need to find a new home. HPC industry analyst firm Intersect 360 Research released its annual report in which they size the worldwide market for scalable computing infrastructure for HPC and AI at $85.7 billion in 2023, up no less than 62% year over year. And Shaheen, you'll never guess the driving force behind that. Yeah, yeah. Well, let me think. Could it possibly be due to, say, a tripling of spending by hyperscalers and cloud providers

on AI infrastructure. Intersect 360 said the on-prem HPC AI infrastructure market grew at a relatively modest, though healthy, 7% from 2022. But ChatGPT and the generative AI craze ignited lavish spending by the big internet companies, making it the first year in which hyperscaler spending on AI infrastructure exceeded total spending for on-prem HPC AI infrastructure. There's a lot to the Intersect 360 report and your coverage, Doug, inside HPC is a good place to start. The ISC conference in Germany is around the corner, so stay tuned for our coverage. But I wanted to highlight the activities of Women in HPC, one of the most important organizations in HPC. They have a

packed lineup of events throughout the week to promote diversity and inclusion to the benefit of all. Yes, we encourage everyone to look up the story now on Inside HPC about WHBC's ISC agenda. Also, we'll have an episode of the AtHBC podcast with Kristen Merritt. She is business manager for WHBC. She's also chief marketing officer of UK HBC systems integrator, Alsace Flight. And she shares with us her passion for the group's inclusion mission,

not only for women in HBC, but also for other underrepresented groups. Okay, that's it for this episode. Thanks so much for being with us. HPC News Bites is a production of OrionX in association with Inside HPC. Shaheen Khan and Doug Black host the show. Every episode is featured on InsideHPC.com and posted on OrionX.net. Thank you for listening. Every episode is featured on InsideHPC.com and posted on OrionX.net. Thank you for listening.