IBM spends 3 billion to push the far future of computer chips

IBM has announced that it is investing $3 billion over the next five years to develop processors with much smaller, more tightly packed electronics than todays chips, and to sustain computing progress even after todays manufacturing technology runs out of steam. The problem is we are just physically finding it impossible to miniaturise silicon chips any more (no pun intended). Read this Cnet article to learn more.

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Croudfunding for a computer history display IBM 5080

The Computer Science Department at The University of Auckland maintains displays on the history of computing that are open for public viewing. This is not an activity that a University would normally fund out of its budget, which is for teaching and research. Right now we have the opportunity to mount a display of engineering Computer Aided Design terminals from the 1980s - these were expensive machines that were required before Computer Graphics became commonplace. The new display will show an IBM 5080 work station set up as it was in use - there will also be other terminals in the display. We need to have a cabinet built to display and protect these items but have no funds to spare at present, hence this first attempt at crowdfunding. If you might be interested in supporting this new display please visit our site on pledgeme.co.nz.

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Jeopardy! Contestants Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter Face Off Against Watson the Super Computer from IBM

It will be a battle fit for the record books, one that will go down in history alongside Gettysburg and World War II. Only this one will not be fought with swords, guns or armies, but with little clickers and incredible knowledge. Thats right, I am talking about the epic showdown set to take place on Jeopardy! this coming Monday which pits two of the shows biggest all-time winners, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, against Watson, a computer designed by IBM.

If you are not familiar with the popular game show that tests contestants knowledge in a wide range of categories, then you will not know who Ken Jennings or Brad Rutter are. To put it simply, Jennings won a grand total of $3,022,700 on the show coming in second only to Brad Rutter who took home a total of $3,255,102. Needless to say, these gentlemen are extremely smart and ready to test their wits against the ultimate competitor, technology.

According to Stephen Baker, author of Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything, "The computer is fast on the buzzer, and if its given certain specialties - its good on facts about facts it can find and nail down - it could win. But humans are better with complex English, puns, nuances, so..."

This challenge was initiated by IBM after its scientists worked on Watson for four years. The outcome has already been determined as the show does not air live, but it is a secret. The episodes were taped on January 14th, 2011 and are set to air on Monday, February 14th, 2011 and conclude on Wednesday, February 16th, 2011. Alex Trebek, the host of Jeopardy! since 1984, isnt budging on giving away the result either.

"I think the guys have a slight edge on knowledge because their memories are good," says Trebek. "In terms of speed, its no contest. Watson has the edge there. But itll all come down to luck." Trebek also added that Watson could not see or hear him "so it was pointless to comment in his direction!"

Executive Producer of Jeopardy! Harry Friedman noted that putting the show together was definitely a challenge. Nobody has every done this before and the closest thing to be done like this was when chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov took on an IBM computer known as Deep Blue. He lost. According to Friedman, "Producing for people and with people is one thing, but dealing with a computer was another."

Friedman sees the competition as a "fascinating exhibition of technology" and not a tournament or a competition. "It is to be judged for what technology can do," he says. However, dont tell that to Jennings or Rutter. Jennings stated that he was spooked by the setting, which took place inside the labs of IBM. "No one was cheering for me. It was at their (IBMs) home arena. It was an away game for humanity."

Rutter, who has won the highest accumulative amount on Jeopardy! ever, says that he does not think humans are becoming outdated and that he enjoyed being a "guinea pig" playing against a computer. According to Rutter, "People watch the show to see the contestants and how they react. Watson will never jump up and down when he gets it right."

The contest is going to air this coming Monday, Feruary 14th, 2011. Check your local listings so you can tune in and see who is smarter, man or machine.

Source: USA Today - Jeopardy! champs compete against computer

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Breakthrough by IBM May Bring Us Exascale Supercomputers

If you are one of the people out there that doesnt think that a supercomputer seems good enough, then you probably work at IBM. Researchers at IBM have just made a breakthrough in using light pulses to help accelerate the transfer of data between chips. If this works out like the people at IBM think it will, then it could quite possibly increase supercomputer performance by more than a thousand times.

This technology, dubbed CMOS Integrated Silicon Nanophotonics (I feel smarter already), integrates optical modules as well as electrical modules on a single piece of silicon. This allows electrical signals created at the transistor level to be transformed into light pulses, seemingly allowing chips to communicate faster according to IBM silicon photonics research scientist Will Green.

IBM believes that this new technology will lead to massive advances in supercomputer power. The fastest supercomputers we have around today max out at nearly 2 petaflops which, for us lay people, registers into two thousand trillion calculations per second. The photonics technology could increase this number to a staggering trillion million calculations per second. Yeah, a MILLION TRILLION calculations per second, otherwise known as an exaflop. This would help IBM achieve their goal of building an exascale computer by the year 2020.

According to Green, "In an exascale system, interconnects have to be able to push exabytes per second across the network. This is an interesting milestone for system builders who are looking at building exascale systems in 10 years."

The possibility of integrating multiple photonics modules onto a single substrate or onto a motherboard is here, according to Green. Newer supercomputers already use optical technology for chips in order to communicate. However, this usually occurs at the rack level and mostly over a single wavelength. This breakthrough will allow optical communication simultaneously at multiple wavelengths.

The good thing about this technology is that it can be manufactured on a standard chip production line. Another benefit is that it also needs no special tools, making it extremely cost-effective. The current demonstration used a 130-nanometer CMOS manufacturing node. However, IBM plans on pursuing integration into "deeply scaled sub-100 nanometer CMOS processes," according to Green.

The technology aims to replace copper wires. As you know, copper wires are widely used today for data transfer between chips. Optics can get a speed increase for distances as short as a few centimeters to as long as a few miles and even consumes less power. Eventually, IBM hopes to use optics for on-chip communication between transistors as well. According to Green, "There is a vision for the chip level, but that is not what we are claiming today."

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