04 Aug. Replacing electricity with light: photonic computer debuts
For the first time, a photonic co-processor has been put into operation in a high-performance computing (HPC) environment. The technology company Q.ant from Stuttgart has delivered its photonic Native Processing Server (NPS) to the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) in Garching. This technologically groundbreaking implementation will enable the LRZ to evaluate photonic acceleration for artificial intelligence (AI) and simulations. This paves the way for significantly higher computing power with considerably reduced energy consumption. The LRZ, an institute of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (BAdW), claims to be one of the largest supercomputing centers in Europe and is driving cutting-edge research with its state-of-the-art infrastructure.
Research into new computer architectures
In the first evaluation phase at the LRZ, several units of the latest generation of the Q.ant NPS will be installed, suitable benchmark workloads will be selected, and real-world application scenarios will be tested—particularly in the areas of AI inference, computer vision, and physics simulations. According to the partners, second- and third-generation NPS units will be used for in-depth evaluation in later phases. The collaboration is aimed at researching hybrid digital-analog architectures for future HPC environments and is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. With the use of the Q.ant NPS, the LRZ is expanding this area of application to include photonic analog computing—a technology that was not feasible at the start of the program but has since become possible thanks to advances made by Q.ant. The LRZ will use the Q.ant NPS to establish new benchmarks and practical use cases for applications such as climate modeling, real-time medical imaging, and material simulation for fusion research.
Michael Förtsch at the high performance computer equipped with Q.ant NPS. Photo: Q.ant
Ceremonial commissioning of cutting-edge German technology
The project was funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space (BMFTR). Guests from politics, science, and industry attended the ceremonial commissioning of the Q.ant NPS at the LRZ. In her welcoming speech, Dorothee Bär, Federal Minister for Research, Technology, and Space, praised the significance of this milestone for Germany and Europe. “The integration of Q.ant’s photonic processor into the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre is impressive proof of German cutting-edge technology and a success story for German research funding,” explained Bär. “We support groundbreaking innovations that strengthen our scientific leadership in the world and our technological sovereignty. With our High-Tech Agenda Germany, we will be even more committed to research and innovation in our key technologies in the future. As here in Garching, we also rely on close cooperation between research and industry.”
Markus Blume, Bavarian Minister of State for Science and the Arts, says: „Computing with light instead of electricity – what once sounded like science fiction is now becoming reality. In Garching, a photonic AI server is in use in a data center for the first time anywhere in the world: 90 percent less energy consumption with 100 times the performance. This shows the potential of our research institutions – and what is possible when science, industry, and government work together.“
Professor Dr. Dieter Kranzlmüller, Chairman of the LRZ Executive Board, says: „Photonic processors offer a novel and promising way to accelerate AI and simulation workloads while significantly reducing our environmental footprint. This practical application brings us significantly closer to our goal of establishing energy-efficient infrastructures for supercomputing and AI. Q.ant’s NPS can be easily integrated into our existing infrastructure, allowing us to evaluate it immediately in practical scenarios. However, researching computing architectures of the future together with partners such as Q.ant would not be possible without the continuous political support we have received for years at both the national and Bavarian levels.“
Dr. Michael Förtsch, founder and CEO of Q.ant, says: „Our collaboration with the LRZ marks a decisive milestone: for the first time in history, we are operating photonic processors in a high-performance computing center with real-world tasks. This demonstrates that light-based processors have made the transition from research to real-world application. This is a crucial step on the path to integrating photonic computing into the mainstream of next-generation computer architecture by 2030. The long-term commitment of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research has contributed significantly to the breakthroughs that have made this success possible.“
From left: Michael Förtsch, Markus Blume, Dieter Kranzlmüller and Dorothee Bär. Photo: Q.ant
Less power, more performance – with light
Artificial intelligence is driving up computing requirements – and pushing high-performance data centers to their limits: power consumption, heat, and space are becoming problems. According to the researchers, Q.ant’s photonic chip does not generate any heat itself, eliminating the need for costly cooling measures. And thanks to the special properties of light, complex calculations can be performed faster and more energy-efficiently on the photonic processor. According to Q.ant, photonic technology enables a new class of high-performance, energy-efficient server rack solutions, with:
- 90 times lower power consumption per application due to the lower cooling requirements of Q.ANT’s photonic processors,
- 100-fold increase in data center capacity through higher computing density and increased computing speed,
- 16-bit floating point accuracy with nearly 100 percent accuracy for all computational operations on the chip,
- Seamless integration through PCIe interface, x86 compatibility, and support for PyTorch, TensorFlow, and Keras.
Source and Photo: qant.com