One of the dirty little secrets of computing is that the power of the processor(s) is currentlyway beyond our ability to program them.
It’s as if you have a V8 powered car but only feeding fuel into one cylinder. The rest of theengine’s potential is vastly underutilised.
So it is with multicore processors, which are like having 2 - 1016 (or much more) individualcomputers on a single chip.
Still most coding/programming is single lines of information in, single computer action out.Writing programs that not only parallel input multiple streams of instructions, ‘talk’ to eachother while carrying out those instructions, and generate simultaneous outputs is, to use thevernacular, bloody, bloody difficult.
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There's plenty of grunt available in a multicore processor, but no one hasreally cracked how to parallel program them. People can find out more about this leading edgetechnology at
MW2017
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Nicolas Erdody, yet another clever immigrant who we’re lucky calls New Zealand home, recognisedthis issue many years ago in setting up Multicore World from 2012. The heavyweight conference’ssixth rendition, MW2017 is again taking place inWellington on Monday 20 - Wednesday 23 February, and again is a concentration of extremely smartpeople, working at the leading edge of computing possibility.
As the conference brochure says, it is about:
Trends and road maps that are notin the general domain.
Apparently the Multicore World conference is the best global assemblage of brains addressing howto overcome parallel programming’s bottleneck problem. (Check out the programme of speakershere).
Of course the opportunity for some of the speakers and attendees (more than 40% of who come fromoutside NZ and Australia) to visit New Zealand is in itself a major enticement - but ultimately itis the concentration of talent that is in itself the main drawcard.
Erdody, CEO of Open Parallel has largely self-funded theconference, though every year its sponsorship has become more and more heavyweight - objective proofof the value seen in pulling global experts to the bottom of the world.
Much of his efforts have gone unheralded, but Erdody has a bigger objective than exploringpossibilities. He also has the dream and intent to see New Zealand as world leader in multicoreprocessor programming and spillover its applications to NZ’s core GDP generators, from primaryindustries to digital animation.
The quality of conversations at Multicore World is arguably unparalleled (pun intended) as well,and can lead to big breakthroughs.
Three years ago, ex-pat American Alex St John heard a comment at MW2014 that unstructured datacan’t be compressed. The former Microsoft top shot, and programmer figured that using gamingGPU’s that he could crack this nut...and has.
Along with Matthew Simmons, they’ve formed the ever-growing
MW2017 will be more than a talk-fest.
It will be grunty and leading edge.
If people have half a mind to get along, they should - Stick will almost guarantee that anyinsights alone gained will more than cover the entry price. The connections and future businesspossibilities on top of this is simply a wonderful bonus.
( Stick enables science and tech companies to simply telltheir story. Punchline , a sister company, helps clients createmillion dollar messages – the 2 – 10 words that describes your essence, emotively describes avalue proposition)