NEC Corporation has unveiled a groundbreaking software program named FireDucks aimed at accelerating the data analysis library “pandas,” widely used for data analysis with Python, the world’s most popular programming language. This innovative and free software promises to reduce the time and costs associated with data analysis significantly.
Speeding Up Data Analysis
FireDucks offers the capability to carry out data preparation tasks required for data analysis up to 16 times faster than existing products. This dramatic improvement in speed not only reduces the time data scientists spend on data preparation but also lowers computing costs, making data analysis more efficient and cost-effective.
Accessing FireDucks
The beta version of FireDucks is now available for free online at https://fireducks-dev.github.io/. This open access allows data scientists and developers to experience the benefits of this software firsthand.
The Growing Need for Data Analysis
In recent years, the collection of large volumes of data from various sources, such as point-of-sale (POS) terminals, e-commerce, and financial transactions, has become increasingly common. To extract valuable insights and analytical results from such data, data scientists rely on artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) techniques.
However, a significant bottleneck in the data analysis process is data preparation, which can consume up to 45 percent of a data scientist’s time. This time-consuming task has become a major concern. Moreover, the surge in data volume, along with the evolution of AI and ML, has led to increased computational complexity. This, in turn, results in higher computational costs, including cloud expenses, and a rise in power consumption and carbon emissions.
NEC’s Solution: FireDucks
In response to these challenges, NEC developed FireDucks, a software program specifically designed to accelerate pandas. Leveraging over thirty years of experience in developing supercomputers and high-performance programming technology, NEC’s FireDucks offers a solution that significantly improves data analysis efficiency and reduces computational costs.
Key Features of FireDucks:
Accelerated Performance: FireDucks is capable of accelerating software programs created using pandas by up to 16 times and, on average, by about five times. This results in a roughly 30 percent reduction in the overall time data scientists spend on data analysis.
Parallel Utilization: The software makes effective use of all CPU cores, processing large data sets in parallel, thereby improving performance.
Efficient Data Processing: FireDucks identifies necessary data sets in advance, focusing processing efforts on those data sets, thus accelerating the overall process.
By providing the beta version of FireDucks to the public for free, NEC aims to contribute to reducing the workload of data scientists and addressing environmental issues by conserving power and reducing CO2 emissions associated with data analysis.
The introduction of FireDucks marks a significant step forward in the field of data analysis, making the process faster, more efficient, and environmentally friendly.
