IBM Claims Breakthrough Energy-Efficient Algorithm

jitendraharlalka sends news of a claimed algorithmic breakthrough by IBM, though from the scant technical detail provided it's hard to tell exactly how important the development might be. IBM apparently presented its results yesterday at the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics conference in Seattle. The breathless press release begins: "IBM Research today unveiled a breakthrough method based on a mathematical algorithm that reduces the computational complexity, costs, and energy usage for analyzing the quality of massive amounts of data by two orders of magnitude. This new method will greatly help enterprises extract and use the data more quickly and efficiently to develop more accurate and predictive models. In a record-breaking experiment, IBM researchers used the fourth most powerful supercomputer in the world... to validate nine terabytes of data... in less than 20 minutes, without compromising accuracy. Ordinarily, using the same system, this would take more than a day. Additionally, the process used just one percent of the energy that would typically be required."

Comments

just trying to be relevant

[pydev]

Sounds like someone found a faster algorithm (maybe just constants), and since energy efficiency is the hot new thing, "faster" is now translated into "saves energy".

Re:just trying to be relevant

[zippthorne]

In a post scarcity economy? Yeah, everyone gets a free ride. Everything changes if you can get to that.

Re:just trying to be relevant

[digitalunity]

One fatal flaw with capitalism is that it leads to runaway wealth and poverty distribution. Socioeconomic mobility is essentially destroyed. The "land of opportunity" as we've been called for so long becomes no more as time goes on. The rich get much richer every year, while the poor get relatively poorer over time.

We're seeing this now as the standards of living for the middle class have been in slow decline for over 15 years. The super-rich continue to amass wealth above the rate of inflation, while many middle class have had to deal with layoffs, pay freezes and massive asset loss in the housing market(much of which was caused by banks seeking higher and higher profits, at any cost).

I don't support socialism as a means of redistribution of wealth. I just have a fundamentally different opinion of what services I expect my government to provide. As the mightiest and richest nation in the world, I find it despicable that we can't even provide universal health care for our citizens. Born rich or old, everyone deserves access to a doctor.

If you question the fairness of the rich paying the healthcare of the poor, just remember: many of the rich got rich on the backs of the poor.

Re:just trying to be relevant

[Dunbal]

The rich get much richer every year, while the poor get relatively poorer over time.

      That's not exactly true. I myself come from a background that 50 years ago was incredibly wealthy. The family had race-horses and private aircraft. Everyone had a brand new luxury car and changed it every year. We had all the luxuries, and no one has been obliged to "work" in a conventional "job" for 3 generations. We thought we had looked after our money. We have managed to triple our net worth over time. And we have gone from being "ultra rich", to being merely "upper middle class". Inflation has overtaken us and destroyed our "wealth".

      The DEFINITION of "rich" has changed, thanks to plummeting purchasing power. Back then, you were rich if you had $10 million. Now it takes at least $1 billion. Now, $10 million will hardly buy you a nice (but small) jet. It certainly won't get you anything decent in places like Beverly Hills or New York. You might be able to afford a couple houses in the Turks and Caicos. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that $10 million is nothing (I won't say no if you're offering), it certainly isn't what it was.

      Therefore while you're complaining about the rich getting richer - remember that it's only those who are constantly putting their money at risk that are getting richer. And they are very few. I know many people who were "rich" and now are penniless - nay, in debt. There's a reality that comes into play when you take risks - eventually it catches up with you. We have played it safe, and now also suffer the consequences. But remember when you use a generalization like "the rich are getting richer", it's not necessarily the same PEOPLE.

Re:just trying to be relevant

[Mashdar]

Corrcted:

One fatal flaw with humanity is that it leads to runaway wealth and poverty distribution.

This is not a new problem. Once you can eliminate the humans, come talk to me.

Awesome!

[daceaser]

I'll buy three!

What do they do exactly?

Clarification?

[Twinbee]

Can someone please clarify exactly what they've achieved here? All I hear is that they can somehow sift through large quantities of data much quicker. What kind of data? What are they trying to extract? And for what end?

TFA is worthless

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be a real story if it gave implementation details, but it doesn't even tell us what the algorithm does; therefore it's totally worthless. Get this crap off the front page.

Re:TFA is worthless

[belthize]

Implementation details are not equivalent to merely clarifying what the heck it does. In the case of cold fusion it's pretty clear what it does: cold fusion. In the case of this press release it does "algorithmy things to your data really fast".

Re:Green-washing

[gandhi_2]

With faster algorithms, the machine can just get more jobs done in the same amount of time. But the jobs will just keep coming, so the energy use never changes.

Or are the new algorithms SO fast that all processing needs of humanity will be done in a week, thereby allowing us to turn off all supercomputers? Now that would save energy.

Re:I'd expect this

[momerath2003]

The funny thing about energy efficiency is that it saves companies money, but they get to spin it as being "green." [For example, when grocery stores eliminate plastic bags to be "green," what they really mean is they're eliminating bags to be "cheap."] If this new algorithm has no penalty associated with it, then it saves time and energy, therefore money and "the environment."

Techniques from parameterized algorithms?

[AlgorithMan]

ZOMFG!!!! PNOIES!!!!

• Kernelzation + Memoization
• Branching-Vector minimization

regularly produce this magnitude of algorithm speedup...

Re:Mixed emotions...

[magsol]

And as an interested academic, I'm disappointed that this (so far) appears to be nothing more than a marketing ploy.

Re:Here's the actual paper.

[Anonymous Coward]

So exactly what they did was discover an algorithm to compute the diagonal of inverse covariance matrices in O(x^2) instead of current ones typically performing in O(x^3).

Given that this applies to a commonly used mathematical process; if it is indeed applicable in other cases that's a great feat; but perhaps not as exciting as the press release makes it out to be :)

Re:I'd expect this

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, fundamentally, green IS cheaper, provided you properly account for ALL costs, negative externalities included.
The only reason not-green seems cheaper is when there's no charge for dumping heavy metals in the rivers, etc.

Re:Here's the actual paper.

[Anonymous Coward]

The slashdot shouldn't concentrate on the breakthrough energy efficiency marketing green crap. They should concentrate on the fact that IBM has, in essence, patented a mathematical algorithm. Yes, they did patent it! I mean, WTF?! Since when is matrix diagonalization (or somesuch) is patentable?