In the cold and noisy room at the Institute of Computing (IC) at Unicamp, anxious guests waited their turn to see the... cluster Abaporu, late Friday afternoon (December 5th). Inside, the University's supercomputer ran, oblivious to all the attention. Those who entered took advantage of the setting to take selfies and celebrate the achievement of a research team that has already made history. The host, Professor Anderson Rocha, made a point of unveiling the symbolic inauguration plaque.
One of the founders of the artificial intelligence (AI) laboratory Recod.ai, at IC, and the only one among them who remained at Unicamp, Rocha explained why he chose the name Abaporu for the clusterThese are groups of interconnected computers that work together to function as a single system, increasing processing power. "The Abaporu sculpture by artist Tarsila do Amaral means 'devourer of men.' In our case, it refers to a 'devourer of data.'"
Abaporu starts specifically with a structure of 28 GPUs, the result of a collaboration between the companies Scherm, Supermicro, Nvidia, and Positivo. "This structure allows us to perform 50 'pentillions' of operations. It's quite significant for those who work with AI," he commented.
“We started a partnership back in 2009 with Scherm and Supermicro, who have been with us from the beginning, then came Nvidia and, more recently, Positivo. Together, we created a very interesting and powerful AI environment. We are gathered here now to show our partners what we are doing,” the professor explained. cluster It was acquired with resources from Shell Brazil [from the ANP's R&D clause, within the scope of the Center for Energy and Petroleum Studies (Cepetro Unicamp)] to be used in research projects that combine AI and petroleum engineering. Today, it has already expanded its contracts to companies such as Samsung, Natura, and government agencies. "We expect to grow much more."
Rocha recalls that, while still a student at IC, he told his coordinator that the computer lab was growing and that they would need to buy a new 1 terabyte hard drive. "He replied that we would never fill a 1 terabyte drive. Today, that's what you find in a laptop."
According to Rocha, Unicamp currently has over 400 people researching AI. "We are certainly the largest group in a Brazilian institution."
New Age
Alex Castellano, partner business manager Nvidia's representative highlighted that research is being conducted at Unicamp that will shape "future world events." During the presentation, he recounted the curious history of the company's development. "Nvidia is only this size today because it started by fostering research; nothing happened overnight. In 2012, there was the first contact between an AI model algorithm and a GPU. In 2016, we built a supercomputer with eight GPUs plugged in, but nobody wanted to buy it; in fact, nobody knew what it was," he said.
Nvidia, headquartered in San Francisco, USA, has finally found a buyer. “One day, the phone rang from an interested company in a nearby city. The director decided to drive the equipment there himself. He was disappointed to discover the company was a non-profit. To make a long story short, it was OpenAI. Back then, it took them eight months to launch the first ChatGPT. Today, with the computing power we have, it would take them eight minutes.”
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