Fujitsu introduces Computing as a Service. The new portfolio provides access to the world’s fastest supercomputers.
Fujitsu has several services planned. The first step is Fujitsu Cloud Service HPC. Paying customers gain access to the Fujitsu supercomputer PRIMEHPC FX1000. The system runs on the same CPU as the world’s fastest supercomputer, Fugaku.
Fujitsu will deploy the service in October. Japanese organisations are eligible for pre-order. The rest of the world will have to wait. Fujitsu confirms that the service will eventually become available in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region. The organisation does not mention a period or date.
Costs
According to Fujitsu, the portfolio has a social purpose. “Advanced computing technologies have largely been limited to applications in an academic context due to prohibitively high investment costs”, said a spokesperson. “Fujitsu will draw on CaaS to promote the commercial use of supercomputing.”
The high price of supercomputing has several reasons. Scarcity plays a role. There’s quite a distance between the average organisation and an available supercomputer. On-site calculations don’t cost a thing, but there’s more to supercomputing applications than calculations.
Most applications revolve around artificial intelligence. The supercomputer depends on a gigantic supply of data. Traffic has to be regulated — and organisations pay the price.
Fujitsu claims to have a solution. CaaS is more than a supercomputer: the portfolio entails architecture. Fujitsu uses APIs to transport data between the cloud and the supercomputer, ultimately returning a stream to a customers’ application. In addition, the organisation provides specialist consultants to fine-tune configurations.
As mentioned before, Fujitsu claims that the portfolio is accessible. That’s difficult to confirm at this time. The organisation does not publicly disclose pricing. There’s a good chance that its architecture keeps costs low, but supercomputing remains a hugely complex product. Fujitsu, despite its best efforts, is not a charity organisation.
Fugaku Computing as a Service
Fujitsu plans to extend CaaS to Fugaku over time (the world’s fastest supercomputer). “The demand for Fugaku’s capabilities continues to grow, coinciding with successful use cases in the shift toward the cloud”, says Satoshi Matsuoka, Director of RIKEN, co-developer of Fugaku. “We’re working with Fujitsu to make its CaaS highly compatible with Fugaku, and we expect CaaS to become an important service for quickly connecting Fugaku to industrial use and practical implementation in society.”
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