The new face of HPC: cloud and 3D printing revolutionize the future of manufacturing
At the end of 2015, more than 10,000 scientists, researchers, department managers, lab directors, and decision makers from all corners of the High Performance Computing (HPC) industry converged on Austin, TX to see the latest innovations in HPC, networking, storage, and related fields at the international Supercomputing Conference.
Even though the event has now come and gone, excitement is still strong for the innovative showcases that were on display. I was especially enthusiastic about our Microsoft exhibit this year; we showed the future of manufacturing by pairing HPC with the cloud and 3D printing technologies to show the true potential of supercomputing.
In our booth, we showed how Microsoft and NVIDIA have partnered to bring both GPU compute and high-end visualization capabilities to Microsoft Azure. We featured Azure Big Compute and demos of our new graphics compute platform. We also highlighted our growing momentum in working with open source communities and companies including Linux, which has been very well received by the industry. People were excited to see how well an HPC cluster built with Linux Virtual Machines (VMs) running on Azure can operate.
Our industry showcase also helped to bring 3D printing to the show for what I believe was the first time ever. We were able to do this through our partnership with Altair, who offers manufacturers software that can generate 3D-optimized designs based on parametric information. We demonstrated how simple that process can be: you simply enter your parameters and variables and then allow Altair Optistruct running in Azure Big Compute to solve a number of valid solutions that would suit your particular need. The chosen solution was refined in Siemens Solid Edge software and then resulting part was printed directly from Microsoft 3D Builder, in real time, right in our booth! It was a huge crowd pleaser. Word of mouth spread quickly and by the end of the show, we practically had half of the floor flocking to our booth to see this demo.
3D printing designs optimized or created in a HPC environment is truly the future of manufacturing. This kind of new, generative design where you use compute power to create solutions instead of actually engineering and modeling it, will propel the industry forward via greatly reduced resources, cost, and time-to-market. And it’s real today on an HPC cluster, built on Linux VMs in Azure running Altair’s software.
To show how the printing could be actually done, we also demonstrated the use of a 3D Systems CubePro printer with the plug-and-play capabilities of Windows 10, 3D Builder (which is our 3D printing software), and Surface Pro 4.0. We printed several different-sized parts each day, including an engine mounting bracket that looks like it’s made from bone. Reaction was outstanding, as people could actually hold the part in their hands and experience the results of what HPC can really do for manufacturers—with the help of 3D printing and the power of Microsoft technologies to bring it all to life. The opportunity for manufacturers to design in the cloud and print right from their desk is truly remarkable.
If you are visiting Microsoft’s Redmond, WA campus, you check out this demo for yourself in our Executive Briefing Center.
LinkedIn: Simon Floyd
Twitter: @FloydInnovation
