Computing and tech revolution to hit Wellington

A fourth consecutive edition of Multicore World, bringing business and technical knowledge of multicore solutions to New Zealand, will descend on the heart of Wellington next week.

A three-day conference beginning February 17, Multicore World 2015 features speakers and discussion around development and deployment in the computer revolution which is transforming how Kiwis work and live.

“Having many computer cores on one chip exponentially increases the power and ability of computing, and New Zealand can be at the forefront of developments in software and applications around multicore,” says Nicolas Erdody, conference director, Multicore World 2015.

The keynote speakers, and discussions will include:

· The impact of cloud computing on many domains

· It's convergence with high performance computing

· How big data is driving companies to fully adopt the cloud faster than predicted

· Whether organisations and companies are ready to take advantage of these dramatic changes

Professor Thomas Sterling from the University of Indiana will discuss how Exascale Computing will break from the past as it brings dramatic improvements in efficiency and scalability in the near future.

Sterling will also be joined by Professor Ian Foster, who will show how cloud services are accelerating scientific and technological advances, while Alex St. John will discuss how the the transition to cloud-based supercomputing may be inevitable and challenge all we know about data centres, mobility and storage.

Furthermore, Pavlo Baron will talk on how the future of computing is undoubtedly linked to parallel computing and Dr Murray Milner will present a perspective of advanced ICT developments in New Zealand and how they will deliver economic improvements for the country.

A commercial perspective in participating in the multicore revolution from a New Zealand base will be explained by Scott Houston; who sold his company GreenButton to Microsoft in 2014.

Don Christie, director of Wellington based Catalyst, will moderate a panel featuring Her Excellence Zodwa Lallie, High Commissioner of the Republic of South Africa, and Dr Kjesten Wiig, MBIE's National Manager of Commercialisation with the panel set to discuss the social and economic benefits that will be triggered by the SKA radio-telescope project – the world's largest ICT project.

Erdody says New Zealand is leading a significant portion of the design of the SKA - scientists led by AUT and Victoria Universities, as well as Catalyst and Open Parallel have been contributing since 2013 to the SKA which is to be built in South Africa and Australia.