The Georgia Institute of Technology's CRNCH (Center for Research into Novel Computing Hierarchies) is tasked with finding novel ways to compute by rethinking every level of the computing stack. CRNCH combines experts from all disciplines, from device and materials, through circuits and architecture, to language, software and application experts. CRNCH also includes hardware spanning from memory-centric systems to neuromorphic chips. This novel approach is what makes the Georgia Tech CRNCH approach to post-Moore computing so unique among academic centers.
In the spirit of sharing ideas and exchanging information, CRNCH hosts this invitational meeting on the Georgia Tech campus in Atlanta. The day includes guest talks, panel discussions and a poster session from our students.
The CRNCH Summit schedule from November 2, 2018:
8 a.m. Registration/Breakfast [KACB Atrium]
8:30 a.m. Welcome by Dean Zvi Galil and Vivek Sarkar, Professor and CRNCH Co-director [KACB 1116]
8:45 a.m. Tushar Krishna, Assistant Professor- ECE: “DNN-Dataflow- Hardware Co-Design for Enabling Pervasive General-Purpose AI”
9:15 a.m. Jason Riedy, Sr. Research Scientist, CSE, and Jeffrey Young, Research Scientist, SCS: “CRNCH Rogues Gallery Update: A Community Core for Novel Computing Platforms”
9:45 a.m. Break/Poster Session
10:15 a.m. Keynote: Dr. Jim Ang, Manager, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory: "How DOE and NNSA support Research to Development to Deployment for Advanced Computing Technologies”
10:45 a.m. Jason Poovey, Research Scientist II, GTRI: “The Center for Health Analytics and Informatics (CHAI) – Observational HealthData Analytics at Scale”
11:15 a.m. Moinuddin Qureshi, Professor, ECE: “Architecture and Compiler Support for Near-Term Quantum Computers”
11:45 a.m. Lunch/Student Poster Session
12:45 p.m. David Womble, Director of Artificial Intelligence Programs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory: “An Overview of AI Initiative and Research at ORNL”
1:15 p.m. Dana Randall, Co-Executive Director-IDeAS: “Emergent Computation in Active Matter”
1:45 p.m. Dr. Peter Kogge, McCourtney, Professor of CS & E at Notre Dame: “Migratory Memory-Side Processing- Breakthrough Architecture for Graph Analytics”
2:15 p.m. Break
2:30 p.m. Saibal Mukhaopadhyay, Professor, ECE: “Hybrid Machine Learning for Complex Systems: Algorithm and Architecture to CoupleModel-based and Data-driven Learning”
3 p.m. Jennifer Hasler, Professor, ECE: “Reconfigurable and Programmable Physical Computing for a Digital Computing World”
3:30 p.m. Panel hosted by Tom Conte, Professor and CRNCH Co-director
A recap for 2017's Summit:
For decades, Moore’s law ensured transistors per microchip doubled every one to two years, making computers fast and innovation faster. But it’s now the end of an era, and how we keep computers at pace with progress is a fundamental question of the future of computing. Georgia Tech’s newest research center, the Center for Research Into Novel Computing Hierarchies (CRNCH), is tackling this problem head-on.
CRNCH hosted an all-day summit on the future of computing on Nov. 3. “We are unique in the nation as the first multidisciplinary center focused on post-Moore computing,” said Tom Conte, the co-director of the research center and a professor joint appointed in the Schools of Computer Science (SCS) and Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE).
The center has more than 30 dedicated faculty members from the College of Computing, the College of Engineering, the College of Sciences, and the Georgia Tech Research Institute. Together, they address the post-Moore world by researching quantum computing, neuromorphic computing, design science, approximate computing, and more. CRNCH’s goal is matchmaking between researchers and funding, students and internships, companies and labs to test their product.
“CRNCH is really bringing people together,” said Lew Lefton, assistant vice president for research cyberinfrastructure in the office of the Executive Vice President for Research. “Working outside silos where domains collide is where really interesting science is happening.”
Throughout the day, leaders in computing discussed the problems facing the industry and how to solve them. As keynote speaker Peter Kogge, the McCourtney Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at Notre Dame said, “We’re hitting a third wall and solving that wall is going to require architectural changes.”
Peter Kogge
Moinuddin Qureshi
Jim Ang
Brian Konigsburg
The College also had strong support from its faculty at the CRNCH summit. SCS Professor and CRNCH Co-Director Vivek Sarkar spoke on software challenges in heterogeneous computing, noting, “Essentially what happens in the post-Moore era is we need to innovate more.”
Vivek Sarkar
The School of Computational Science and Engineering’s presence at the CRNCH Summit included presentations by school chair David Bader, Professor and Co-Executive Director of the Institute for Data Engineering and Science Srinivas Aluru, and Senior Research Scientist Jason Riedy.
David Bader
Srivinas Aluru
Jason Riedy
A focus of the day was the Rogues Gallery, a new project initiated by CRNCH that focuses on next-generation hardware and uncommon technologies.
“What happens when novel prototypes hit reality?” Riedy said. “We want to not focus on just static data; we want to focus on when these sets change. This is one of the founding ideas behind the creation of the Rogues Gallery.”
Riedy is leader on the grant to purchase the first hardware to be featured gallery, the Emu Chick. The eight-node emu computer was installed the day before the summit after arriving last month. Shortly after the Emu Chick was connected, CRNCH researchers had several large applications running on it.
The Rogues Gallery may be just one of CRNCH’s many innovations, but it’s a fitting symbol for the center.
“A rogue is someone who goes out on their own,” Conte said. “The only path forward is the crazy.”
Panel Video
