Cray Works With Industry Leaders to Reach New Performance Milestone for Deep Learning at Scale
December 07 2016 - 2:01AM
At the 2016 Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) Conference
in Barcelona, Spain, global supercomputer leader Cray Inc.
(Nasdaq:CRAY) today announced the results of a deep learning
collaboration between Cray, Microsoft, and the Swiss National
Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) that expands the horizons of running
deep learning algorithms at scale using the power of Cray
supercomputers.
Running larger deep learning models is a path to new scientific
possibilities, but conventional systems and architectures limit the
problems that can be addressed, as models take too long to train.
Cray worked with Microsoft and CSCS, a world-class scientific
computing center, to leverage their decades of high performance
computing expertise to profoundly scale the Microsoft Cognitive
Toolkit (formerly CNTK) on a Cray® XC50™ supercomputer at CSCS
nicknamed “Piz Daint”.
By accelerating the training process, instead of waiting weeks
or months for results, data scientists can obtain results within
hours or even minutes. With the introduction of supercomputing
architectures and technologies to deep learning frameworks,
customers now have the ability to solve a whole new class of
problems, such as moving from image recognition to video
recognition, and from simple speech recognition to natural language
processing with context.
Deep learning problems share algorithmic similarities with
applications traditionally run on a massively parallel
supercomputer. By optimizing inter-node communication using the
Cray® XC™ Aries network and a high performance MPI library, each
training job can leverage significantly more compute resources –
reducing the time required to train an individual model.
“Cray’s proficiency in performance analysis and profiling,
combined with the unique architecture of the XC systems, allowed us
to bring deep learning problems to our Piz Daint system and scale
them in a way that nobody else has,” said Prof. Dr. Thomas C.
Schulthess, director of the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre
(CSCS). “What is most exciting is that our researchers and
scientists will now be able to use our existing Cray XC
supercomputer to take on a new class of deep learning problems that
were previously infeasible.”
“Applying a supercomputing approach to optimize deep learning
workloads represents a powerful breakthrough for training and
evaluating deep learning algorithms at scale,” said Dr. Xuedong
Huang, distinguished engineer, Microsoft AI and Research. “Our
collaboration with Cray and CSCS has demonstrated how the Microsoft
Cognitive Toolkit can be used to push the boundaries of deep
learning.”
A team of experts from Cray, Microsoft, and CSCS have scaled the
Microsoft Cognitive Toolkit to more than 1,000 NVIDIA® Tesla® P100
GPU accelerators on the Cray XC50 supercomputer at CSCS. The result
of this deep learning collaboration opens the door for researchers
to run larger, more complex, and multi-layered deep learning
workloads at scale, harnessing the performance of a Cray
supercomputer.
To simplify the building and deploying of deep learning
environments in supercomputing, Cray is supporting its Cray XC
customers with deep learning toolkits, such as the Microsoft
Cognitive Toolkit, that allow customers to run deep learning
applications at their fullest potential – at scale on a Cray
supercomputer. Fusing high performance computing capability with
deep learning is another step forward in Cray’s vision of the
convergence of supercomputing and big data.
“Only Cray can bring the combination of supercomputing
technologies, supercomputing best practices, and expertise in
performance optimization to scale deep learning problems,” said Dr.
Mark S. Staveley, Cray’s director of deep learning and machine
learning. “We are working to unlock possibilities around new
approaches and model sizes, turning the dreams and theories of
scientists into something real that they can explore. Our
collaboration with Microsoft and CSCS is a game changer for what
can be accomplished using deep learning.”
For more information on Cray’s machine learning and deep
learning solutions and the Cray XC series of supercomputers, and
please visit the Cray website at www.cray.com.
About Cray Inc.Global supercomputing leader
Cray Inc. (Nasdaq:CRAY) provides innovative systems and solutions
enabling scientists and engineers in industry, academia and
government to meet existing and future simulation and analytics
challenges. Leveraging more than 40 years of experience in
developing and servicing the world’s most advanced supercomputers,
Cray offers a comprehensive portfolio of supercomputers and big
data storage and analytics solutions delivering unrivaled
performance, efficiency and scalability. Cray’s Adaptive
Supercomputing vision is focused on delivering innovative
next-generation products that integrate diverse processing
technologies into a unified architecture, allowing customers to
meet the market’s continued demand for realized performance. Go to
www.cray.com for more information.
Cray, and the stylized CRAY mark are registered trademarks of
Cray Inc. in the United States and other countries, and XC50 and XC
are trademarks of Cray Inc. Other product and service names
mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
Cray Media:Nick Davis206/701-2123pr@cray.com
Cray Investors:Paul Hiemstra206/701-2044ir@cray.com
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