Topics including (but not limited to)....

  • Rising power needs

  •  

    Advanced cooling

  •  

     

     

     

       Latest & Greatest New Tech

  • How compute is used

  • Efficient computing & explaining stuff

  •   We argue about it all!

Radio Free HPC (RFHPC) started in 2012 and, after a short break of 193 months, has returned to the airwaves (cyber waves?) with co-hosts Dan Olds, Henry Newman, and Shahin Khan.

The podcast covers a wide range of topics but is particularly focused on data center technology and challenges. These include high performance computing, power and cooling, new technology, and, really, whatever the hell they want to talk about.

 

Quick FAQ


"Why are you just covering HPC? There's this new thing called AI, have you heard of it?"

Yeah, we've heard of it and we do cover it. To us, HPC is a broad term used to refer to a very broad group of apps/workloads that have common characteristics.

  1. They are computationally intense
  2. Time to solution and quality of solution are critical
  3. The output is important enough to justify investment in high-end clusters and associated hardware/software

AI meets all of the criteria above just like bioscience, aerospace, weather prediction, and several other domains. In fact, AI is or will soon be folded into the workflows of nearly every 'traditional' HPC and enterprise application over time. This is going to put a lot of pressure on data centers and we'll be talking about how to deal with it.

 

"Was the old version of Radio Free HPC popular? I've never heard of it..."

Yes, it rose from obscurity to being mildly popular and, at times, entertaining. At our peak, we had as many as 16 sustained listeners and as many as 19 theoretical max listeners.

 

"I listened to the old show a couple of times and liked the arguing. Will there be more of that in this reboot?"

Yes, in fact we expect as much as 29% more arguing and a significant increase in the number of personal insults per episode.

 

"How often will this thing come out and how do I find out about it?"

We used to try to do weekly shows but failed due to other commitments, travel, etc. And there were just weeks when nothing important happened. But to answer your question, could be every couple of weeks, could be once a month, or we could record a marathon 8-10 hour single episode. Depends on what's happening and our mood.

We're getting together our RSS feeds and such but in the short term we'll be publicizing the episodes through the RFHPC X account and our individual social media accounts.

 

Ok, enough questions. If you want to learn more about the show and hosts, check out the "About" page.

Here are our most recent episodes along with the 345 or so previous editions, enjoy!

 

 

 

Latest Episode

  • Episode 160: A Look at the TianHe-2A Supercomputer

    By admin | September 25, 2017 |

    In this podcast, the Radio Free HPC team looks at China’s massive upgrade of the Tianhe-2A supercomputer to 95 Petaflops peak performance.
    As detailed in a new 21-page report by Jack Dongarra from the University of Tennessee, the upgrade should nearly double the performance of the system, which is currently ranked at #2 on TOP500 with 33.86 Petaflops on the Linpack benchmark. The upgraded system, dubbed Tianhe -2A, should be completed in the coming months.

    Details about the system upgrade were presented at the conference opening session. While the current system derives much of its performance from Intel Knights Corner co-processors, the new system swaps these PCI devices out for custom-made 4-way MATRIX-2000 boards, with each chip providing 2.46 Teraflops of peak performance.
    After that, we do our Catch of the Week:

    • Dan is rejecting the notion of a $800 IoT coffee machines that will only work with proprietary cartridges from the vendor.
    • Shahin looks at a new book that describes how the invention of air conditioning changed the face of the world.
    • Dan likes Ray Dalio’s new Radical Truth and Radical Transparencyschool of business coming to Silicon Valley.
      • There is a ritual called “public hangings,” wherein employees are taken to task in front of their co-workers. A Harvard Business School case study of one of these “hangings” includes a video of a meeting that involves a “Maoist-like struggle session where a young male ­employee was berated by a group of peers and superiors for not being good enough.” At the end of the video, the man fires himself.
    • Rich notes that Paul Messina is stepping down as Director of the DOE’s Exascale Computing Project after two years of building up the organization from scratch. Doug Kothe from ORNL will step up to the Director role for the monumental task ahead: building applications for machines that are 50x faster than on today’s biggest machines.

    Download the MP3 * Subscribe on iTunes * RSS Feed

Recent Episodes

  • Whales: Giants of the Ocean

    September 27, 2026

    Whales: Giants of the Ocean Whales are among the largest and most remarkable animals on Earth. These marine mammals live in oceans around the world, from warm tropical waters to…

  • Episode 402: AI Doomsday? Rogue Agents and more.

    September 21, 2026

    Dan, Henry, and Shaheen unpack an Anthropic engineer’s resignation letter claiming many insiders think AI could wipe out humanity by 2030. They debate whether that’s sincere fear, a regulation play…

  • Episode 401: NOAA Goes Cloudy, Big Time

    August 17, 2026

    Episode 401: NOAA Goes Cloudy, Memory Gets Pricey, and Someone Might Have Hooked an Alligator We’re two episodes into the reboot and the band is still back together-Shahin in the…

  • Episode 400: We’ve Re-Booted The Show

    August 2, 2026

    After 193 months off the air, Radio Free HPC is back. Dan, Shahin, and Henry return with the same arguments, the same opinions, and a slightly more irregular schedule. Also:…

  • La variété des fournisseurs de jeux sur Cazeus Casino

    August 1, 2026

    Le Cazeus Casino se distingue sur le marché des jeux en ligne par la diversité impressionnante de ses fournisseurs de jeux. Cette plateforme offre à ses utilisateurs une variété de…

  • Crown Play Casino et l’art de la satisfaction client

    July 31, 2026

    Crown Play Casino se distingue dans l’univers du jeu en ligne par son engagement envers la satisfaction client. Cette plateforme, accessible via https://crownplay-fra.com, s’efforce d’offrir une expérience de jeu complète…

  • Comment fonctionne le cashback chez Highflybet Casino ?

    July 30, 2026

    Le cashback est un atout majeur pour les joueurs chez casinoshighflybet.com, attirant un public varié grâce à sa proposition de valeur intéressante. Ce système de remboursement attire de plus en…

  • Les impacts des promotions sur l’expérience à Brutal Casino

    July 30, 2026

    Brutal Casino se démarque sur le marché des jeux en ligne grâce à une offre captivante et une diversité impressionnante de promotions. Les joueurs constatent que ces promotions ont un…

  • Pourquoi les joueurs adorent Ivybet Casino en 2023 ?

    July 26, 2026

    En 2023, ivybet est devenu un choix privilégié parmi les joueurs en ligne, offrant une expérience de jeu immersive et des fonctionnalités qui répondent aux besoins des amateurs de casino.…