Speaker: Dr. Tobias Becker from Maxeler Technologies

Title: Multiscale Dataflow Computing: The Maxeler Approach

Abstract: Dataflow computing is a novel way of performing computation which is
fundamentally different from instruction-driven computing with conventional CPUs
and GPUs. Dataflow computers focus on optimising the movement of data in an
application and exploit massive parallelism among thousands of tiny ‘dataflow
cores’. Maxeler Technologies is pioneering this efficient approach to computing
through its Multiscale Dataflow techno­logy. Application experts in science,
engineering or finance can develop and customise their algorithms in a high
level language and optimise their application across several layers of
abstraction, targeting Maxeler’s highly efficient dataflow computers. Compared
to industry standard servers, one to two orders of magnitude improvements in
terms of performance per unit of rack space and performance per Watt are
typically achieved. This has been demonstrated in a range of application
domains, including finance, geology, weather modelling, genomics, and data
analytics.