Tokyo, April 6, 2022 — Fujitsu today announced “Fujitsu Computing as a Service” (CaaS) offering computing resources such as Fujitsu’s quantum-inspired Digital Annealer technology; AI and machine learning software applications; and technology used in the Arm-based “Fugaku,” the world’s top-ranked supercomputer.
Fujitsu said it began preorders today for for Fujitsu Cloud Service HPC, which offers the computing power of the Arm-powered Fujitsu Supercomputer PRIMEHPC FX1000, with delivery start in Japanese in October. A global rollout will follow. This supercomputer model utilizes technologies used the world’s most powerful supercomputer, Fugaku.
Fujitsu said it also will provides HPC deployment services and, on the operational side, performance tuning and app analysis for customers conducting research and analysis. The company said compute nodes, 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).
“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 realizing DX and Society 5.0 to contribute to the fulfillment of various SDGs,” said Satoshi Matsuoka, director, Center for Computational Science at the RIKEN Scientific Research Institue. “Within the past two years, 149 companies have already utilized 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 synergize Fugaku with this new service to provide its capabilities seamlessly in the cloud.“
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 democratizing 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.’”
Fujitsu said that in order to realize its 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.
“Cost remains a major obstacle for many companies and organizations aiming to apply advanced computing technologies like Fujitsu’s Digital Annealer and high performance computing (HPC) in their business,” the company said. “To address this issue, Fujitsu will offer users easy access to a range of services under its new CaaS portfolio, allowing users from a wide range of industries to easily tap into the power offered by Fujitsu’s advanced computing technologies.”
Building on its new service portfolio “CaaS,” Fujitsu plans to conduct trials with organizations and companies to optimize designs for the manufacturing industry and optimize drug discovery for pharmaceutical companies.
