Supercomputing based on Mobile Processors

In the late 1990s, (mostly) economic reasons led to the adoption of commodity desktop processors in high-performance computing. This transformation has been so effective that in 2013 the TOP500 list is still dominated by x86-based computers. In 2013, the largest commodity market in computing is not PCs or servers, but mobile computing, comprising smartphones and tablets, most of which are built with ARM-based SoCs. This leads to the suggestion that once mobile SoCs deliver sufficient performance, mobile SoCs can help reduce the cost of HPC.

In view of the experiences within the Mont-Blanc project at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, this talk will describe possibilities and challenges involved in developing a high-performance computing platform from low cost and energy efficient mobile processors and commodity components.