Jack Dongarra: Turing Award Winner & HPC Pioneer | Emeritus Professor, University of Tennessee
- Stephen Ibaraki acknowledges Jack Dongarra as the creator of libraries and standards essential for scientific computing.
- Recognition of Jack Dongarra’s mentorship, community building, and influence in industries like pharmaceuticals and simulation.
Podcast
Overview
This episode of TBCY features a stimulating interview with Jack Dongarra, a foundational figure in high-performance computing, conducted by host Stephen Ibaraki. The conversation explores Dongarra’s career milestones, groundbreaking contributions to scientific computing, and his vision for the future of computational science. For leaders in tech, investors, or enthusiasts seeking to understand the engines driving today’s digital innovation, this episode is a masterclass you shouldn’t miss.
00:00:08- What has been Jack Dongarra’s foundational impact on computing, and what does the ACM Turing Award mean to him?
- Stephen Ibaraki acknowledges Jack Dongarra as the creator of libraries and standards essential for scientific computing.
- Recognition of Jack Dongarra’s mentorship, community building, and influence in industries like pharmaceuticals and simulation.
- Jack Dongarra shares his shock and gratitude for being awarded the ACM Turing Award—the “Nobel Prize” of computing.
00:03:23- What were the inflection points in Jack Dongarra’s career?
- Early aspirations to become a high school teacher in Chicago.
- Transformative experience at Argonne National Laboratory during undergraduate studies.
- Shift from teaching to computer science, leading to master’s degree at Illinois Institute of Technology.
- Full-time software development at Argonne, involvement in Ice Pack (eigenvalue package) and Linpack.
- PhD pursuit at University of New Mexico, mentorship under Cleve Moler, hands-on experience with the Cray 1 supercomputer at Los Alamos.
- The decision to focus on high-performance computing, linear algebra, and scientific software development.
00:10:01- How has Jack built and led the Innovative Computing Laboratory at the University of Tennessee?
- Joint position at University of Tennessee and Oak Ridge National Laboratory since 1989.
- Growth of the Innovative Computing Laboratory (ICL) to a team of 45 researchers, postdocs, students, and staff.
- Securing research funding from government agencies and industry, with a portfolio of about 20 active grants.
- Three core areas: algorithms and software for linear algebra, parallel programming tools (including MPI), and performance benchmarking (Top500 list, Linpack benchmark).
- Role of ICL in training students who become prominent figures in HPC.
00:16:26- How does industry engage with high performance computing and what practical applications does it serve?
- Industry’s significant investment in supercomputing—half of Top500 machines are used commercially.
- HPC drives competitive advantages in sectors like automotive, pharmaceuticals, and climate modeling.
- Supercomputers as sophisticated scientific instruments, akin to the James Webb telescope for astronomy.
- Examples: cars designed through simulation rather than crash tests, weather forecasting, climate change research.
00:23:42- What is the US Exascale Computing Program, and what’s its impact?
- Exascale machines capable of a billion billion computations per second (10^18 ops/sec).
- Deployment of three exascale computers (Frontier, Aurora, El Capitan), each costing ~$600 million.
- 21 major scientific applications being prepared for these machines, covering areas like fusion, cosmology, cancer research.
RESOURCES:
Learn more about Jack Dongarra: LinkedIn
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- Stephen Ibaraki acknowledges Jack Dongarra as the creator of libraries and standards essential for scientific computing.
- Recognition of Jack Dongarra’s mentorship, community building, and influence in industries like pharmaceuticals and simulation.
