Leading Global Organizations to Discuss High Performance Computing as a Competitive Asset

WASHINGTON—The Council on Competitiveness has collaborated with SC07 to assemble a world class lineup of industry speakers from global corporations who will discuss complex, real-world problems that demand high performance computing solutions. Presented as part of the SC07 Masterworks sessions, case study presentations will tap into the expanding use of High Performance Computing (HPC) to drive innovation and productivity, a critical part of the Council’s work for the past three years. Presentations will highlight novel and innovative ways of applying advanced-computing, communications and storage technologies to achieve the breakthroughs needed to capture and ensure a competitive advantage.

Interview opportunities are available with speakers from leading global organizations realizing competitive advantage by the innovative use of High Performance Computing (HPC) to drive new discoveries in science, new advances in engineering and manufacturing, and significant business process improvements.

Who: Executives speaking on the use of High Performance Computing (HPC) as a competitive asset representing Allstate Insurance, BAE Systems, Chevron, D.E. Shaw Research, EFILM LLC, General Motors, PING Golf, Pratt & Whitney, Whirlpool Corp., American Museum of Natural History, BMW, Chrysler LLC, FedEx, DreamWorks Animation, MSC Software, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, NASDAQ Stock Market, and Wal-Mart.

Where: SC07 the premier international conference on high performance computing, networking, storage, and analysis, will draw an expected 10,000 attendees to Reno, Nevada November 10-16 at the Reno Sparks Convention Center.

When: Telephone interview opportunities are available starting immediately and face-to-face interviews at SC07 will be available based on speaker travel schedules and dates of their presentations.

What: This year, the Masterworks sessions of SC07, a track of invited luminary speakers, has collaborated with the Council on Competitiveness, to showcase industry’s use of high performance computing to drive productivity and innovation for business success. An exciting and entertaining roster of business thought leaders will speak over the course of three days, during November 13 – 15, 2007, about their use of HPC as a competitive asset.

Members of the media are invited to attend any or all of the Masterworks sessions. Media registration is complimentary.

Of Special Interest: CTO Roundtable

The Masterworks portion of the SC07 program will wrap up on Thursday, November 15th at 3:30PM with a CTO Roundtable chaired by Dr. David E. Shaw of D.E. Shaw Research, LLC, also an invited speaker at SC07 and the winner of the SC06 Best paper award with his research team.

Panel participants for the CTO Roundtable will include Anna Ewing, executive vice president of operations and technology and Chief Information Officer of The Nasdaq Stock Market, Kevin Humphries, senior vice president of technology systems for FedEx Corporate Services, Reza Sadeghi CTO of MSC Software, and Nancy Stewart, senior vice president and Chief Technology Officer in the Information Systems Division of Wal-Mart Stores. A standing room only crowd is expected for this capstone session.

Schedule of Speakers

Tuesday, November 13, at 10:30AM, Torbjorn Larson of BMW will discuss an evolving paradigm shift in Formula One Racing as R&D moves from physical testing to computational simulations with the use of CFD and high performance computing.

Tuesday, November 13, at 11:15AM, John Picklo of Chrysler, LLC will give an overview of Chrysler’s use of HPC for NASCAR and other motor sports activities, and how the lessons learned from HPC efforts at the blazing edge translate to innovative improvements in passenger vehicle designs.

Tuesday, November 13, at 1:30PM, Mark Cooper, a Research Fellow in complex trait genetics & molecular breeding for Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Inc., will review in a colorful discussion three case studies of the use of high performance computing infrastructure to develop new, industrial scale hybrid agricultural products appropriate for bio-fuels.

Tuesday, November 13, at 2:15PM, Sharan Kalwani of General Motors will discuss HPC’s mission critical role in GM’s efforts to harness and use alternative energy sources appropriate for the automotive industry.

Tuesday, November 13, at 3:30PM, Jamil Appa, an aeronautical engineer and group leader for Technology and Engineering Services at BAE Systems, will discuss current examples of modeling and simulation in the design and life support for a range of industry products, and how industry must rethink many of its approaches in order to realize competitive advances with new MultiCore architectures.

Tuesday, November 13, at 4:15PM, Dr. Thomas P. Gielda of Whirlpool, will discuss how high performance computing is behind the design of highly reliable, commercially successful everyday home appliances from the kitchen to the laundry room including the design of more secure packaging to reduce shipping damage and costly customer returns.

Wednesday, November 14, at 10:30AM, Evan Smyth, a principal software engineer at DreamWorks Animation will discuss his group’s development of a system that will deliver for the first time real-time rendering to the artist’s desktop. “Rendering at the Speed of Shrek” requires a speedup of five orders-of-magnitude and a multi-system approach which DreamWorks is pursuing through a partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and access to its leadership-class high performance computing system. DreamWorks Animation, SKG, is a Department of Energy INCITE Award winner for “Real-Time Ray-Tracing”.

Wednesday, November 14, at 11:15AM, Peter Bradley, a 20-year veteran at Pratt & Whitney and a Fellow in High Performance Technical Computing will discuss how Pratt & Whitney is using HPC systems to develop the next generation of fuel-efficient, low emission, “greener” jet engines. Pratt & Whitney is a Department of Energy INCITE Award winner and is partnering with Argonne National Laboratory and its Blue Gene systems in this effort.

Wednesday, November 14, at 3:30PM, Robert Eicholz, vice president of technology and corporate development for EFILM, LLC, will discuss how EFILM has used HPC to launch the new Digital Laboratory industry. Robert will discuss the challenges of digitizing, enhancing and storing the Petabytes of data the make up complete movies, illustrating his presentation with clips from several recent blockbuster movies.

Wednesday, November 14, at 4:15PM, Eric Morales of PING Golf will discuss how PING uses HPC to build leading-edge golf clubs, accomplish world class testing and simulation, and bring new generations of golf products to market in a timely fashion that keeps PING Golf at the top of their game.

Thursday, November 15, at 10:30AM, Catherine Brune and Anthony Abbattista of Allstate Insurance will discuss how the company is using high performance computing techniques to more effectively manage, visualize and cull critical information from very large scale data repositories of customer information in order to drive business results and increase the utilization of its technology investment.

Thursday, November 15, at 11:15AM, Dr. Mordecai-Mark Mac Low of the American Museum of Natural History will entertain the audience as he describes how high-performance computing coupled to high-resolution video projection enables visitors to the Hayden Planetarium to travel in the third dimension, off the Earth and into the observable universe. His presentation will describe the techniques used to enable the visualization of large-scale scientific data sets, bringing the latest astronomical research in an engaging and educational experience to audiences numbering in the millions while competing with other entertainment-based leisure activities.

Thursday, November 15, at 1:30PM, Lynn Chou, the GM of global technology and strategy at Chevron Information Technology Company will discuss Chevron’s use of HPC to optimize its vast and diverse energy supply chain from the molecule to the pump as it strives to increase and diversify energy production and simultaneously curtail costs. This thought provoking discussion looks at how HPC plays an ever increasing role in the energy sector as it enters a new era characterized by supply and demand uncertainties, increased concern about global warming, and changing roles for oil companies.

Thursday, November 15, at 3:30PM, the CTO Panel. This capstone session explores the strategic value of HPC, and how this critical asset is best positioned to contribute maximum business return for competitive gain. How are rising energy costs coupled with increasing system power requirements driving decisions about HPC purchases and HPC data center locations? Should leading user companies use their market leverage to drive HPC through their supply chain? Are they at risk if they don’t? These are examples of the kinds of strategic questions that will be explored.

Chair: Dr. David E. Shaw of D.E. Shaw Research, LLC 

Panel Participants:
Anna Ewing, executive vice president of operations and technology, and chief information officer of The Nasdaq Stock Market
Kevin Humphries, senior vice president of technology systems for FedEx Corporate Services
Reza Sadeghi, CTO of MSC Software
Nancy Stewart, senior vice president and CTO in the Information Systems Division of Wal-Mart Stores