(Yicai) Sept. 6 -- Artificial intelligence technologies will be used more and more in high-performance computing as this year is only the first for AI-generated content, according to the vice president of Huawei Technologies' data storage product line.

With the energetic development of cutting-edge technologies, including AI, cloud computing, and silicon-based chips, the in-depth integration of conventional supercomputing and AI is speeding up, and data density will become progressively obvious, Pang Xin told Yicai in a recent interview.

High-performance computing refers to multiple supercomputers working in parallel to deal with extremely complex or data-intensive problems. The number of hyperscale data centers globally rose almost 70 percent to 659 in the second quarter of last year from 390 in 2017, and is likely to surpass 1,000 next year amid rapid market growth, according to Synergy Research Group.

Data determines the level of AI intelligence, Pang noted. “The essence of AI tech introduction is to synthesize laws that conform to a high probability through AI algorithms,” he said. “Although these laws lack interpretability, they’re the best guide for breakthroughs in scientific research and innovation.”

Pang said that for researchers, the trend of data-centric ‘data-intensive supercomputing’ is approaching, and only powerful data storage can ensure that the supercomputing sector is supported to go from scientific research to scientific intelligence. Efficient data acquisition, cleaning, circulation, and whole-process management will be the winning factors in the science and technology competition, Pang added.

The construction of E-class supercomputers (machines that can perform 10 billion mathematical operations per second) has become commonplace in China, and the resulting energy consumption and heat dissipation issues have become the focus of the industry's green and low-carbon evolution, Pang said. By increasing the deployment of high-density hardware in supercomputing centers, especially the application of flash media, these issues can be solved, he noted.

“Flash drives have a crushing advantage over traditional mechanical hard disks across many dimensions, including performance, energy consumption, and capacity density, but less than 30 percent of data centers in China use flash solid-state drives,” he pointed out.

Shenzhen-based Huawei is firmly promoting all-flash distributed storage and accelerating the arrival of the turning point in SSD cost-effectiveness via higher-capacity SSD disks and scenario-based data reduction algorithms, Pang added.

Editor: Martin Kadiev