Keynote Speaker: Andrew A. Chien

Andrew A. Chien is the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Entropia, Inc. -- an internet computing company which empowers individuals to contribute to "great cause" computations, and delivers large-scale computing resources. Dr. Chien's research and technology expertise includes networks, communication software, distributed systems, middleware, operating systems, compilers and computer architecture. Andrew is also the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) Chair Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). His previous affiliations include the University of Illinois, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his S.B., S.M., and Sc.D. degrees all from M.I.T. He has received numerous awards and recognitions for his research.

Entropia: Megacomputing on the Internet
Andrew A. Chien
Chief Technology Officer, Entropia, Inc.
SAIC Chair Professor, University of California, San Diego

Entropia is building the world's largest general-purpose internet computing system. These systems will comprise millions (10^6) of processors (megacomputers) and will be the world's first peta-op (10^15 ops/sec) computing systems. The availability of such megacomputers will enable dramatic advances in science, engineering, and society (e.g. bioinformatics, design, health care, etc.). Because these platforms will make large-scale computing available to ordinary computer users, they will spark new applications, software, and stimulate radically different algorithms and problem-solving approaches.

The design of megacomputer systems is challenging because it requires the synthesis of WWW/internet, high performance computing, and commodity software technologies in a scalable, reliable computing system. We will discuss the Entropia approach, in particular describing its near term capabilities and applications. We will also speculate about the future capabilities of megascale systems and their place in large-scale computing.