Races against time & with the rest of the world: HiPEAC Vision 2023

That’s the main message of the HiPEAC Vision 2023, a major new report produced by HiPEAC, the European Network on High Performance Embedded Architecture and Compilation, based on expert analysis of technology trends.

"In the technical domain, the speed of change is astonishing: new breakthroughs in artificial intelligence (AI) nearly every week, new technologies such as quantum computing driving large investments, and combinations of technologies leading to new paradigms like the industrial metaverse are just some examples," said HiPEAC Vision Editor-in-Chief, Marc Duranton (CEA).

"The challenge now is to get a holistic view, efficiently combining technologies while taming complexity, for example with the help of AI and trusted orchestrators, to guide us into an evolution of computing that is more efficient, sustainable and trustable."

"From the geopolitical point of view, technology is increasingly seen as a strategic asset, with different world regions competing for leadership. With global supply chains under serious pressure, more world regions are aiming for technological sovereignty, while cyberattacks are becoming more frequent and intense," added Professor Koen De Bosschere (Ghent University), the coordinator of HiPEAC.

"Climate change is also becoming increasingly evident, meaning that sustainability is finally being taken seriously, so that optimising processes to use fewer raw materials and less energy is now a major objective."

Drawing on the expertise of the HiPEAC community, each chapter of the HIPEAC Vision is dedicated to a different leadership race and features a series of standalone articles laying out the key issues, complete with recommendations. In addition, the editorial board has developed three global recommendations which cut across the different ‘races’, as follows:

• Break silos to gain a holistic view, which is necessary for global optimisations. Promote collaboration between teams, launch project calls to create synergies between domains, establish cross-disciplinary European competence centres and promote open source.
• Develop tooling for cross-disciplinary and multi-dimensional challenges. A global view is necessary for enhanced optimisation, but it is more complex. Technologies such as AI should be used as a ‘helper’ to propose solutions – which should always be validated before implementation.
• Develop trustable runtime orchestrators able to manage complex systems. In some cases, systems will have to select a large number of options ‘in real time’. This will require the development of trustable orchestrators which are loyal to their users.

Throughout, cartoons by the Belgian comic artist Arnulf provide a light-hearted, often satirical take on the content.

"In the previous HiPEAC Vision, we still had choices about which technology paths to take. Now, we are in urgent mode: we just have to take our place in the race," added Marc Duranton.