INDUSTRY

In recognition of the Cornell Theory Center’s (CTC) contributions to the global research community since 1985, the Center is sponsoring the “Symposium on High-Performance Computing: Predictions and Visions for the Future” on May 24, 2005, from 9:00 to 4:00, in G10 Biotechnology. Admission is free and open to the public, however registration is requested. Visit its Website to register. The signature event of CTC’s 20th anniversary festivities, the Symposium will explore the future of high-performance computing (HPC). Cornell University's president, Jeffrey S. Lehman, will welcome participants to the session that will challenge the status quo and offer predictions for how best to address tomorrow's computationally-intense and data-driven challenges. Industry leaders will present thought-provoking sessions designed to encourage compelling discussions. Presentations will be offered by the following: • Kyril Faenov will present “Emergence of Personal Supercomputing.” Faenov’s talk will discuss the trend calling for personal HPC. The trend embraces server clustering and desktop cycle stealing to solve technical and business problems that only a few years ago required dedicated supercomputers. HPC features some of the most demanding and exciting application scenarios that drive innovation in distributed system development, large scale management, parallel computing, networking, and storage. This session will explore how this area is viewed and how it will be addressed by Microsoft, including product plans and roadmap. Faenov is Director of the High-Performance Computing product unit in the Windows Server group, leading the technical computing product strategy and implementation at Microsoft. Prior to this role, Faenov held a number of senior positions, including Director of Central Program Management for Windows Server, founder of a new distributed platform incubation project, executive staff member, competitive analysis lead, and a software developer in Windows networking. Faenov joined Microsoft in 1998 as the result of the acquisition of Valence Research, a clustering startup he co-founded and lead to profitability. • Dr. Michael Waterman will present “Whole Genome Optical Mapping,” which is an innovative new technology used to infer the genome map of the location of short sequence patterns called restriction sites. The technology allows the visualization of the maps of randomly located single molecules from 3x10^5 to 10^6 base pairs in length. The genome map is constructed from overlapping these shorter maps. The mathematical and computational challenges come from modeling the measurement errors and from the process of genome map assembly. Waterman is a professor at the University of Southern California. He works in the area of computational biology, concentrating on the creation and application of mathematics, statistics and computer science to molecular biology, particularly to DNA, RNA, and protein sequence data. He is the co-developer of the Smith-Waterman algorithm for sequence comparison and of the Lander-Waterman formula for physical mapping. He is a founding editor of Journal of Computational Biology, is on the editorial board of seven journals, and is author of the text Introduction to Computational Biology: Maps, Sequences and Genomes. Dr. Waterman came to USC in 1982 after positions at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Idaho State University. He was named a Guggenheim Fellow (1995), was elected to the American Academy of Art and Sciences (1995), and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (2001). He is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. • Dr. Raymond Laflamme will present “Harnessing the Quantum World,” which will explain how it might be possible to build ultra-powerful quantum computers. His talk will address how quantum particles behave, how they are controlled and, ultimately, how they are used to calculate. Laflamme is the Director of the Institute of Quantum Computing at the University of Waterloo. He spent nine years at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In 2001 he joined the newly founded Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and the University of Waterloo. Dr. Laflamme holds a Canada Research Chair (CRC) in Quantum Information. • Dr. Anthony Ingraffea will present “From Microstructure to Macrofailure: The Role of Computer Simulation in Life Prediction of Air and Space Craft.” Ingraffea is Cornell’s Dwight C. Baum Professor of Engineering. He spent two years as a structural engineer with the Grumman Aerospace Corporation and two years as a county engineer with the Peace Corps in Venezuela. He has taught structural mechanics, finite element methods, and fracture mechanics at Cornell since 1977. Ingraffea’s research concentrates on computer simulation and physical testing of complex fracturing processes. He and his students have performed pioneering research in the use of interactive computer graphics in computational mechanics and have authored more than 200 papers in these areas. • Jaron Lanier will present “The New Ontological Trilogy: People, Reality, and Computer Models,” which will discuss a new paradigm for using computer models to represent the complexities of reality that are based on reality instead of the alphabet soup of protocols that take up excessive human brain space today. Lanier is a computer scientist, composer, visual artist, and author. He is probably best known for his work in Virtual Reality. Lanier founded VPL Research, the first company to sell VR products. In the late 1980s he led the team that developed the first implementations of multi-person virtual worlds using head-mounted displays, for both local and wide area networks, as well as the first “avatars,” or representations of users within such systems. While at VPL, he co-developed the first implementations of virtual reality applications in surgical simulation, vehicle interior prototyping, virtual sets for television production, and assorted other areas. He led the team that developed the first widely used software platform architecture for immersive virtual reality applications. Lanier is currently a visiting scientist at Silicon Graphics and an external fellow at Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute. • David Turek, VP of IBM Deep Computing, is also a featured speaker at the Symposium. In April 2003, Turek was appointed vice president for IBM’s Deep Computing business, which consists of products, solutions and service offerings targeted to insightfully meet the HPC needs of customers ranging from the extreme scientific to commercial customers in market segments as diverse as financial services and business intelligence. Most recently he was responsible for IBM’s Linux Cluster business and launched IBM’s efforts around supercomputing on demand as well as HPC grids. He joined IBM in 1974 as a Systems Engineer and has held a variety of other technical and management positions within the IBM Corporation.