Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, will present keynote speech at Supercomputing Conference (SC18).

LOS ALAMITOS, Calif., 02 October 2018 – Acclaimed author and MIT Director Erik Brynjolfsson will present the keynote speech at SC18: The International Conference for High Performance Computing (HPC), Networking, Storage and Analysis, set to take place November 11–16 in Dallas, Texas. Register now at https://sc18.supercomputing.org.

Brynjolfsson joins SC18 to explore the seismic changes being brought about in societies, economies, and organizations by three primary elements of the machine age:

• machines are now transforming the role of human decision-making,
• digital platforms allow products and services of others to be sold and brokered, and
• a proliferation exists of an almost-magical effectiveness for obtaining ideas from the general public (the crowd) rather than from the experts at the core of the business.

According to Brynjolfsson, "We are in the early stages of not one, but three revolutions. Decisions shift from minds to machines. Profits are generated by platforms not just products. And insights created by a broader crowd, not just a narrow core of experts. The future belongs to the leaders who understand and harness this triple revolution."

Brynjolfsson currently serves as director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. His research draws on big data, artificial intelligence/machine learning, and HPC, and also examines the effects of information technologies on business strategy, productivity and performance, digital commerce, and intangible assets. He teaches MIT courses on the Economics of Information and the Analytics Lab.

His research has appeared in leading economics, management, and science journals and has been recognized with 10 best paper awards and five patents. Brynjolfsson is the author of several books including, with co-author Andrew McAfee, New York Times best-sellers "The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies" (Norton, January 2016) and "Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing Our Digital Future" (Norton, June 2017).

Brynjolfsson unites with an extensive lineup of HPC thought leaders and innovators at SC18, including the following Invited Talks:

Tues. Nov 13

• "The Age of Data - Visualizing the Revolution" - Chris Johnson, University of Utah
• "Brain-Inspired Massively-Parallel Computing" - Steve Furber, University of Manchester
• "What Is the Role of Architecture and Software Researchers in Making Quantum Computing Practical?" - Margaret Martonosi, Princeton University
• "Applying Deep Learning" - Bryan Catanzaro, NVIDIA

Wed. Nov 14

• "Delivering on the Exascale Computing Project Mission for the US Department of Energy" - Doug Kothe, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
• "China's Effort on Exascale Computing: Current Status and Perspectives" - Depei Qian,  Sun Yat-sen University
• "ABCI – Envisioning High Performance Human-Centered AI for Industry" - Satoshi Sekiguchi,  National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST)
• "Urban Energy Science and High Performance Computing" - Mary Ann Piette, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Thurs. Nov 15

• "A Quantum Future of Computation" - Matthias Troyer, ETH Zürich
• "The Human Side of Data Science" - Cecilia Aragon, University of Washington
• "Artificial Intelligence at the Edge: How the Internet of Things and HPC Connect in the Computing Continuum" - Pete Beckman, Argonne National Laborary
• "Superscaling Performance through Energy-Efficient Supercomputing" - Padma Raghavan, Vanderbilt University

This year's SC 30th anniversary event also includes celebratory activities and events highlighting the evolution of the conference, supercomputing, and related technologies. For information on the full program, exhibits, keynotes, awards, and registration, visit https://sc18.supercomputing.org.