A country that does not have the computational capacity to solve its own problems will have no alternative but to try to acquire solutions provided by others. One of the most important aspects of sovereignty in the 21st century is the ability to produce mathematical models and to have the capacity to solve them. Today, the availability of computing power commensurate with one’s wealth exponentially increases a country’s capacity to produce knowledge. in the developed world, it is estimated that for every dollar invested in supercomputing, the return to society is of the order of US$ 44(1) and to the academic world US$ 30(2). For these reasons, HPC occupies an important place on the political and diplomatic agendas of developed countries. 

In Latin America, investment in HPC is very low compared to what’s the US, Asia and Europe are doing. In order to quantify this difference, we present the tables below, which show the accumulated computing capacity in the ranking of the 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world – the TOP500(3) – (Table 1), and the local reality (Table 2). Other data are also included, such as the population (in millions), the number of researchers per 1,000 inhabitants (Res/1000), the computing capacity per researcher (Gflops/Res) and the computing capacity per US$ million of GPD. In Table 1, we have grouped the countries by geographical area. America appears as the area with the highest computing capacity, essentially due to the USA, which has almost 45% of the world’s computing capacity in the TOP500. It if followed by Asia and then Europe. Tis TOP500 list includes mainly academic research centres, but also industry ones, typically those used in applied research (many private ones do not wish to publish such information for obvious reasons). For example, in Brazil – which shows good computing capacity with 88,175 TFlops – the vast majority is in the hands of the oil industry and only about 3,000 TFlops are used for basic research. Countries listed in the TOP500 invest in HPC from a few TFlops per million GDP (Belgium 5, Spain 7, Bulgaria 8), through countries investing in the order of hundreds (Italy 176, Japan 151, USA 138), to even thousands, as is the case in Finland with 1,478. For those countries where we were able to find data on the number of researchers, these range from a few Gflops per researcher (Belgium 19, Spain 24, Hungary 52) to close to 1,000 GFlops, i.e. 1 TFlop (USA 970, Italy 966), with Finland surpassing this barrier with 4,647. Note that, unlike what happens locally, countries with a certain degree of development invest every 3-4 years in supercomputing, so the data we are showing will soon be updated and there will be variations in the list. For example, this year a new supercomputer will come into operation in Spain(4), which, with an investment of some 150 million euros, will give Spain one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe – and the world.

Table 1. HPC availability per researcher and relative to GDP in the TOP500 countries (includes HPC in industry).

The local reality is far from this data. Table 2 shows data from Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. In Chile, the availability of computing power is 2-3 times less per researcher than in countries with less computing power in the OECD and up to 100 times less than a researcher in the US. In Chile, our investment measured in TFlops per million US$ of GDP is 166 times less than in the US; with respect to European countries that invest less in HPC it is 9 times less, and with respect to the European average (including Finland) it is 80 times less, i.e. the difference is considerable. It is clear that we need to close this gap. An investment go about 5 million dollars in HPC infrastructure in the next 5 years would close this gap by a factor of almost 20 times our computational capacity. However, returning to the example of Spain, the supercomputer it will have this year will offer 23 times more computing power than at present and, therefore, we will only maintain our relative distance. If we do not invest, the dap will increase by at least 23 times and will end up being huge. Therefore, we do not only need a one-time investment, but we need to ensure a regular investment. Some neighbouring countries are already investing significantly in supercomputing. This is the case in Argentina, where they are investing 7 million dollars (2 million for the datacenter and 5 million to buy a new supercomputer), which will increase their current capacities by almost 40 times(5).

Table 2. HPC availability per researcher and relative to GDP in the region (*only HPC capacity in academia is considered in this table).

For the above reasons, we are working to convince the Chilean authorities that we must have greater funding and, more crucially, permanent state funding in HPC. In relation to this, on July 6 we signed a collaboration agreement between 44 institutions with the support of the Ministry of Science to work on the creation of the National Supercomputing Laboratory(6). The agreement recognised that supercomputers are a critical infrastructure for Chile’s development, that it is necessary to centralise the requirements/resources at the national level, obtain permanent funding from the State and create a new institutional framework to provide governance. In an unprecedented inter-institutional collaboration in Chile, the competition for HPC resources at the national level is eliminated ad the possibility of direct funding from the State is opened up without generating controversy.

Undoubtedly, supercomputing is a fundamental pillar for the development of any country, where increasing investment provides a strategic advantage, and in Latin America we should not be left behind.

By NLHPC

References

(1) Hyperion Research HPC Investments Bring High Returns

(2) EESI-2 Special Study To Measure And Model How Investments In HPC Can Create Financial ROI And Scientific Innovation In Europe 

(3) https://top500.org/ 

(4) https://www.lavanguardia.com/ciencia/20230129/8713515/llega-superordenador-marenostrum-5-bsc-barcelona.html

(5) https://www.hpcwire.com/2022/12/15/argentina-announces-new-supercomputer-for-national-science/

(6) https://uchile.cl/noticias/187955/44-instituciones-crearan-el-laboratorio-nacional-de-supercomputacion

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In the European and Latin American (EuroLatAm) HPC ecosystems, it tis possible to identify actors in different domains: industry, academy, research, society, and government. Each of them, at different levels, has a group of demands or interactions, depending on the interests. I.e., the industry demands capabilities to have HPC solutions for productivity and wants skills from the academy to perform development actors to build applications to use solutions. Another example could be the relationship between research and the government. In the HPC Ecosystem, collaborations allow synergies to face common interests. Still, it demands policies and coordinated roadmaps to support long-term projects and activities with a clear impact on society.

Of course, a historical relationship exists between Latin America and Europe from colonial history. In the case of advanced computing projects, it is possible to identify, from the first EuroLatAm Grid Computing projects more than twenty years ago until the real supercomputing projects such as RISC and RISC2. Still, now, more with shared interests and the different EuroLatAm HPC projects improve competitiveness and collaboration. Competitiveness for industrial and productive business, partnership (and competitiveness) in science and education goals, and human wellness. So paraphrasing Mateo Valero “who does not compute does not compete”, I would add “who does not collaborate does not survive”.

Taking collaboration and competitiveness, the RISC2 project allows identifying sustainability elements and sustainable workflows for different projects. The impressive interaction between the actors of the HPC EuroLatAm ecosystem has not only given scientific results but also policies, recommendations, best practices, and new questions. For these outcomes, in the past 2022 Supercomputing Conference, RISC2 was awarded the 2022 HPCWire Editors’ Choice Award as the Best HPC Collaboration.

Sustainable advanced computing ecosystems and their growth are evident with the knowledge of the results of projects such as RISC2. Collaboration, interaction, and competitiveness build human development and guarantee development, technological diversification, and peer-to-peer relationships to attack common interests and problems. So, RISC2 is a crucial step to advance to a RISC3 as it was at the time of the previous RISC.

By Universidad Industrial de Santander

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Our partners Carlos Barrios Hernandez (from Industrial University of Santander) and Esteban Meneses (from Costa Rica National High Technology Center) participated directly on the “Americas HPC Collaboration” session, on November 16, which aimed to showcase opportunities and experiences between different HPC networks. On this session, Philippe Navaux (from UFRGS and SCALAC) presented the RISC2 project.

It was also during the conference that RISC2 was honoured with the HPCwire Editors’ Choice Award for “Best HPC Collaboration (Academia/Government/Industry)” 2022.

The partners representing RISC2 were Fabrizio Gagliardi (from Barcelona Supercomputing Center), Rui Oliveira (from INESC TEC), Bernd Mohr (from Jülich Supercomputing Centre), Carlos Barrios Hernandez (from Industrial University of Santander), Esteban Meneses (from Costa Rica National High Technology Center), Pedro Alberto (From University of Coimbra), and Philippe Navaux (from UFRGS and SCALAC).

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Fabrizio Gagliardi, director of the RISC2, says “I feel particularly honored by this recognition on behalf of all the project members who have worked so hard to achieve in such a short time, and with limited resources, a considerable impact in promoting HPC activities in Latin America in collaboration with Europe”.

Editors’ Choice: Best HPC Collaboration (Academia/Government/Industry)

The RISC2 project, following the RISC2 Project, aims to promote and improve the relationship between research and industrial communities, focusing on HPC application and infrastructure deployment, between Europe and Latin America. Led by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), RISC2 brings together 16 partners from 12 different countries.

About the HPCwire Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards

The list of winners was revealed at the SC22 HPCwire booth and on the HPCwire website.

The coveted annual HPCwire Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards are determined through a nomination and voting process with the global HPCwire community, a well a selections from the HPCwire editors. The awards are an annual feature of the publication and constitute prestigious recognition from the HPC community . They are revealed each year too kick off the annual supercomputing conference, which showcases high performance computing, networking, storage, and data analysis.

“The 2022 Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards are exceptional, indeed. Solutions developed with HPC led the world out of the Pandemic, and we officially broke the Exascale threshold – HPC has now reached a billion, billion operations per second!” said Tom Tabor, CEO of Tabor Communications, publishers of HPCwire. “Between our worldwide readership of HPC experts and the most renowned panel of editors in the industry, the Readers’ and Editors’ Choice Awards represent resounding recognition of HPC accomplishments throughout the world. Our sincerest gratitude and hearty congratulations go out to all of the winners.”

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