Extra tags: Digital Transformationdata
Fujitsu announced the launch of its new service portfolio "Fujitsu Computing as a Service (CaaS)" to accelerate digital transformation (DX) and empower customers globally by offering access to some of the world’s most advanced computing technologies via the cloud for commercial use.
The new service encompasses advanced computing resources like Fujitsu’s quantum-inspired Digital Annealer technology, the computing technology at the heart of the world’s fastest supercomputer, Fugaku, and software applications that allow a wide range of users to solve problems with AI and machine learning. Starting in October 2022, Fujitsu will supply these new services to the Japanese market, with a global rollout to follow international regions such as Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Americas.
As the first step, Fujitsu will begin preorders for “Fujitsu Cloud Service HPC,” which offers the computing power of the “Fujitsu Supercomputer PRIMEHPC FX1000,” which shares the same CPU at the heart of the supercomputer Fugaku. Fujitsu will begin sales of the service for the general public and organisations in Japan starting April 6, 2022, with delivery to commence from October. In the months ahead, Fujitsu will further add services for its Digital Annealer technology and AI cloud services to its service lineup in order to provide further value-added services that seamlessly integrate various solutions.
Vivek Mahajan, Chief Technology Officer (Corporate Executive Officer, SEVP) Fujitsu Limited, comments: “CaaS will provide customers with seamless access to services on the public cloud to meet rapidly increasing computing demands, leveraging Fujitsu’s world-leading advanced computing technologies. In the future, we look to further expand the portfolio with access to technologies like quantum computing. This move marks an important milestone toward democratising high-performance and quantum computing and will play an important role in the achievement of Fujitsu’s Purpose: ‘to make the world more sustainable by building trust in society through innovation.’”
To realise the vision of a more sustainable world embodied by its global business brand “FUJITSU Uvance,” Fujitsu will draw on CaaS to promote the commercial use of a range of advanced computing technologies, which have until the present been largely limited to applications in an academic context due in part to prohibitively high investment costs and implementation and operational loads.
CaaS, according to Fujitsu, will help solve social difficulties and persistent challenges in a variety of industries, including banking, manufacturing, distribution, logistics, catastrophe protection (including earthquake and tsunami prediction), and medical fields, including drug research and gene therapy.
Democratisation of high-performance computing: lowering the barrier to entry
Many firms and organisations that want to use advanced computing technologies like Fujitsu's Digital Annealer and high-performance computing (HPC) in their business face a significant cost barrier. To address this issue, Fujitsu's new CaaS portfolio will provide customers with easy access to a variety of services, allowing users from a wide range of industries to quickly tap into the power of Fujitsu's advanced computing technology.
Outline of CaaS
The cloud services portfolio of CaaS represents one of the main pillars of Fujitsu’s “Uvance” brand to create a sustainable world and resolve societal issues through digital innovation.
The service portfolio will offer comprehensive support for customers, featuring software, a service integration platform, as well as consulting and tuning services that operate on top of the cloud. This allows users to enjoy the problem-solving capabilities and access to world-class computing resources without the deployment and operational costs typically associated with technologies like supercomputers.
CaaS service portfolio
Features of “Fujitsu Cloud Service HPC”
“Fujitsu Cloud Service HPC” provides users access to PRIMEHPC FX1000, Fujitsu’s supercomputer model that utilises technologies cultivated through the design of the world's most powerful supercomputer, Fugaku.
Fujitsu further provides support services that come standard with a suite of software and libraries to support customers in deploying HPC. On the operational side, Fujitsu also offers performance tuning and app analysis services to support customers focusing on research and analysis.
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On-demand HPC services for access to high-performance computing at any time
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Compute nodes(1), login nodes, job scheduler, storage, and application software for HPC are set up in advance (users do not have to build their own HPC environment and only need to prepare data needed for their analysis)
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Users pay only for what they need
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Professional operational and technical support to ensure ease of use
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Technical support based on Fujitsu’s decades of operational expertise in high-performance computing, including knowhow gained through the development of the supercomputer Fugaku (support customers without pre-knowledge to derive maximum benefit from HPC through support in software and library installation and tuning services)
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Development of HPC utilisation plans tailored to customers’ business plans
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High compatibility with supercomputer Fugaku to accelerate R&D and deployment of cutting-edge technologies in society
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Simple transfer of research results generated on supercomputer Fugaku to CaaS services to accelerate practical application in society (CPU, job scheduler, file system, compiler, application software, and API common to Fugaku are available)
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Users planning large-scale analysis and research projects are able to migrate to Fugaku in the future with the same operability.
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Future Plans
Fujitsu wants to perform trials with organisations and corporations to optimise designs for the manufacturing industry and drug research for pharmaceutical industries, based on its new "CaaS" service portfolio.
Fujitsu also wants to help solve social problems by assisting customers in managing, digitising, and integrating ever-increasing amounts of complex data in their businesses using secure 5G and beyond 5G networks, as well as providing advanced AI, Digital Annealer, and quantum computing technologies for real-time data processing.
“Vision” of CaaS
Comment from Satoshi Matsuoka, Director, Center for Computational Science, RIKEN
“Fugaku was developed as a supercomputer featuring the latest high-performance computing technology and is being used in research and development with the aim of realising DX and Society 5.0 to contribute to the fulfillment of various SDGs. Within the past two years, 149 companies have already utilised Fugaku in 48 use cases primarily in manufacturing, including trial operations prior to full-scale implementation. The demand for technological capabilities offered by Fugaku continues to grow, coinciding with successful use cases in the shift toward the cloud. We are working with Fujitsu to make its CaaS to be highly compatible with Fugaku to support such requirements, and we expect CaaS to become an important service for quickly connecting R & D on Fugaku to industrial use and practical implementation in society. Moving forward, we will collaborate with Fujitsu to further synergise Fugaku with this new service to provide its capabilities seamlessly in the cloud.“
