Supercomputing invokes the power of light
The researchers at IBM in conjunction with their mates at Corning Inc. are well on their way to adopting light to transfer data throughout the computer system. As a matter of fact, they have successfully demonstrated how the world's most advanced and powerful optical packet switch can transfer (drum roll) 2.5 Terabits of data in (hang on) a single freakin' second!
The next level of supercomputers shall be defined by how fast communication takes place within the system itself. The reason being that these mother of 'em all systems are multiprocessing systems. That translated into understandable language means that today's supercomputers - IBM's Blue Gene, for instance - are built up of a large number of processors that work in parallel to complete tasks quickly.
This means that efficient and quick data transfers are necessary, nay mandatory, inside these powerful computers. Sponsored by the US Department of Energy/NNSA, IBM researchers have taken upon themselves to enhance future supercomputing performance by using optical networks to transfer data between two processors, chips or communication networks. Optical data transmission means that data is transferred at very high speeds and with minimum of data losses or power consumption.
These advantages of optical data transfer have motivated a bunch of computer scientists at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory and optical engineers at Corning Inc. in USA. They have focused on switches to harness the power of light communication.
The optical packet switch, which has managed to transfer data at 2.5 Terabits per second (had to rub it in!) is the outcome of a four year old project entitled OSMOSIS (Optical Shared MemOry Supercomputer Interconnect System). The packet uses 64 optical data links each of which runs at 40 Gigabit per second (and the more mortals of us are stuck at kilobytes to download things, talk about a hard deal!).
With this successful demonstration the only hurdle that remains in the path of practically using the optical switches is the lack of optical memory. Once the technique of storing and retrieving optical data bits is overcome, light would be employed in supercomputers. Then supercomputers would be able to solve some real problems like accelerating discoveries in biology and medicine.
Researchers now know for sure the path to the evolution of supercomputing abilities. 'Let there be light' will surely be the guiding principle for these devoted souls.
