Argonne to play major role in new computer facility
ARGONNE, Ill. (May 14, 2004) The U.S. Department of Energy's
Argonne National Laboratory will play a major role in the development
of a new national computational science facility aimed at deploying a
supercomputer capable of sustained performance of 100 trillion floating-point
operations per second (teraflops) by 2007.
Argonne partnered with Oak Ridge National
Laboratory to develop a proposal for the National
Leadership Computing Facility (NLCF), which will engage teams of
researchers from national laboratories, research institutions, computing
centers, universities and vendors. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
will use the NLCF for mission-related research; the NLCF will be open
to researchers from around the world for competitive, peer-reviewed
research.
The Oak Ridge-Argonne proposal was selected from four proposals received
from DOE's science laboratories. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced
May 12 that the department would provide $25 million to fund the project's
first year. The total cost is estimated to be $150 million to $200 million.
“This world-class computational facility will ensure America 's leadership
in high-performance computing and scientific discovery,” Abraham said. “It
will serve to revitalize the U.S. effort in high-end computing.”
Oak Ridge National Laboratory will be responsible for working with vendors
and users to determine the best system architecture for the expected
set of computation problems. It will work closely with Cray and IBM as
well as with Argonne, other DOE national laboratories and universities
to make the new DOE computing capability a success.
Argonne will help develop software for two computers to be deployed
at Oak Ridge National Laboratory: Red Storm, a massively parallel machine,
and a Cray X-1 vector architecture parallel computer. The Cray will be
upgraded to a more powerful version, the X-2, which is expected to achieve
the 100-teraflops mark.
In addition, Argonne will deploy and evaluate, in partnership with IBM,
a five-teraflops BlueGene/L supercomputer at the laboratory's Illinois
site. Researchers at Argonne 's Mathematics
and Computer Science Division will evaluate the system and the software
needed to support scientific applications.
IBM's BlueGene system was selected to expand the range of computing
architectures available to scientists and to explore promising technologies
for next-generation leadership-class machines, those with performance
in the petaflops range (1 petaflops = 1000 teraflops). Argonne leads
a consortium of research institutions working on open-source software
for this architecture.
“Research applications suitable for BlueGene supercomputers range from
simulations of brain seizures to the processes in exploding stars,” said
Argonne Director Hermann Grunder. “High-end computation, theory and experimentation
are the three pillars supporting today's science and technology research.
The laboratory is proud to be an integral part of this next major step
in the evolution of scientific computation.”
“The BlueGene computer system, with its Power-based architecture, offers
a great computational platform from which to search for new scientific
breakthroughs,” said Pat Toole, general manager of IBM Engineering and
Technology Services.
BlueGene system architecture is designed to be highly “scalable” — additional
central processing units, or CPUs, can be added to the system with minimal
changes to the operating system, applications and software environment.
Argonne researchers will explore algorithms and techniques for achieving
a larger fraction of peak performance, and will use both standard performance
benchmarks and actual application codes to help predict how the system
will perform as additional computing power is added to the system. Future
versions of the BlueGene/L system may have more than 120,000 CPUs.
“This project will set the direction of Argonne's high-performance computing
research through the end of the decade,” said Rick Stevens, director
of Argonne 's Mathematics and Computer Science Division. “The BlueGene/L
will allow us to explore a wide range of applications and promising technologies
for the next generation of leadership-class machines.”
“This is exactly the kind of commitment we've needed since the Japanese
unveiled the world's fastest supercomputer two years ago,” said Congresswoman
Judy Biggert, chairman of the Energy Subcommittee on the House Science
Committee. “It will take supercomputing R&D to a new level and help
us regain world leadership. I am delighted that the men and women of
Argonne National Laboratory and IBM will partner to perfect a supercomputing
system for scientific research in biology, plasma physics, nuclear physics,
genomics and other fields.”
“I want to congratulate Dr. Hermann Grunder and all of the hardworking,
dedicated scientists, engineers and researchers at the laboratory for
their role in this critical project,” said Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich. “Illinois
has a long history of innovation, and this is just one more example of
the talent that makes this innovation possible.”
The state has contributed to such laboratory initiatives as the I-Wire
high-speed computer network, the Advanced Photon Source and the Center
for Nanoscale Materials.
The nations first national laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory
conducts basic and applied scientific research across a wide spectrum
of disciplines, ranging from high-energy physics to climatology and biotechnology.
Since 1990, Argonne has worked with more than 600 companies and numerous
federal agencies and other organizations to help advance America's scientific
leadership and prepare the nation for the future. Argonne is operated
by the University of Chicago for
the U.S. Department of Energy's Office
of Science.
For more information, please contact Dave Jacqué (630/252-5582
or media@anl.gov) at Argonne.
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