St Andrews experts research computer challenges of future

Academics at St Andrews University have contributed to a pioneering piece of computer research.

A world-leading team of researchers and industrial experts from across Europe are celebrating the conclusion of a four-year research collaboration tackling the challenges posed by the fastest and most powerful computing systems on the planet.

The €4.2M ParaPhrase project brought together academic and industrial experts from across Europe to improve the programmability and performance of modern parallel computing technologies.

Project leader Professor Kevin Hammond of St Andrews University said: “Future computers will consist of thousands or even millions of processors, which poses a real problem to traditional programmers not used to thinking in parallel.

“The sheer complexity of these systems means that powerful tools are needed to develop software that runs stably and efficiently while making the most of the ability to process in parallel.

“The technologies we have developed in ParaPhrase make it possible now to really exploit the power of these new systems.”

The researchers have developed an approach that allows large parallel programmes to be constructed out of standard building blocks called patterns. A refactoring tool allows these patterns to be reassembled in optimal ways without changing the functionality of the overall programme.

Further tools allow the programme components to be run on the system in ways that make best use of the available processors, maximising throughput and minimising run time of large programmes. The tools can even adapt the program while it is running to improve performance.

Professor Hammond added: “It was important to us that our research could be directly exploited by industry and other researchers. That’s why we applied ParaPhrase to several important industrial case studies during the project.”

Indeed, the project team has used its extensive industrial expertise to develop Use Case Scenarios in a range of application areas.