Argonne extends advanced computing expertise to
tackle scientific challenges with SciDAC2
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ARGONNE, Ill. (Nov. 16, 2006) — Argonne National Laboratory has been awarded
approximately $25 million over the next five years for more than a dozen projects
under the Department of Energy's “Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing” (SciDAC)
program. Designed to ensure that the United States maintains a leadership role
in science and technology, these projects will bring together some of the nation's
top researchers from national laboratories and universities to create the software
and infrastructure needed to help scientists effectively use the next generation
of supercomputers in tackling complex scientific challenges.
The SciDAC program was initiated in 2001 to create the high-performance computing
software tools needed to advance scientific discovery using terascale supercomputers.
Now entering its second cycle, SciDAC will address the computational science
challenges and opportunities posed by petascale computers capable of performing
quadrillions of calculations per second. This unprecedented speed and performance
will change the nature of scientific questions that can be addressed via simulation
in every scientific field.
Argonne is recognized as a world leader in designing robust algorithms, scalable
numerical libraries and Grid middleware. Argonne also spearheads critical developments
in systems software—including parallel programming tools, programming models,
operating runtime systems, and high-performance input/output and data-management
tools—that enable effective use of petascale systems. Argonne will leverage
this experience and expertise in the following areas to accelerate research
in each of the three main components of the SciDAC-2 program—centers for enabling
technologies, SciDAC institutes, and science applications:
- Center for Enabling Distributed Petascale Science (CEDPS) — Both
simulation science and experimental science are poised to produce enormous
quantities of data. This data is useful, however, only if it can be accessed
and analyzed. CDEPS will create the technical innovations necessary for
large and often distributed communities to access data so that it can be
shared and translated into knowledge.
- Scaling the Earth System Grid to Petascale Data Center for Enabling Technologies — Current
efforts in climate modeling and climate science are generating massive amounts
of data that are distributed across the globe. This project will address
projected scientific needs for data management and analysis and will support
the major Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment in 2010.
- Towards Optimal Petascale Simulations (TOPS) — Multiscale,
multirate scientific and engineering applications in the SciDAC portfolio
possess resolution requirements that are practically inexhaustible and demand
execution on the highest-capability computers, soon reaching the petascale.
The goals of TOPS are the development, testing, and dissemination of solver
software.
- Center for Technology for Advanced Scientific Component Software (TASCS) — The
TASCS project will enhance software quality and usability by creating a
component ecosystem of off-the-shelf components.
- Scientific Data Management Center for Enabling Technologies — This
project will improve the scientific data management framework to address
the scalability and complexity challenges presented by hardware and applications
at the petascale.
- Center for Scalable Application Development Software — This
project focuses on software tools for increasing the productivity of scientific
application development on high-end computing systems. The center will emphasize
the research and technical challenges associated with effective utilization
of such systems, the development and maintenance of open-source shared software
infrastructures, and education and outreach.
- Modeling Multiscale, Multiphase, Multicomponent Subsurface Reactive Flows
Using Advanced Computing — The ability to model multiscale subsurface
processes is essential for obtaining accurate predictive capability of
contaminant transport. This project is aimed at developing a next generation
of massively parallel, multiphase, multicomponent reactive flow and transport
code based on a successful prototype.
- A Scalable and Extensible Earth System Model for Climate Change Science — The
model developed in this project will incorporate new processes necessary
to predict future climates based on the specification of greenhouse gas emissions.
The model will fully simulate the coupling between the physical, chemical,
and biogeochemical processes in the climate system.
- A Data Domain to Model Domain Conversion Package (DMCP) for Sparse Climate
Related Process Measurements — This program will advance climate
simulation capabilities by developing models for processing spatially sparse
climate data sets by using the latest available statistical modeling techniques
and knowledge of relevant physical and chemical processes.
- Low-Energy Nuclear Physics National High-Performance Initiative: Building
a Universal Nuclear Energy Density Functional — This project
seeks to create a unified theory of nuclear structure and reactions by
developing a Universal Nuclear Energy Density Functional to predict nuclear
properties and reactions with unprecedented accuracy and clearly defined
uncertainties. Achieving this goal will require theoretical, algorithmic,
and computational developments that will take advantage of new computer
resources including petascale architectures.
- Framework Application for Core-Edge Transport Simulations (FACETS) — The
FACETS project will provide a multiphysics parallel framework application
that will enable whole-device modeling for the U.S. fusion program and will
provide the modeling infrastructure needed for ITER, the next step fusion
containment device. FACETS will be highly flexible, through the use of modern
computation methods including component technology and object-oriented design,
and will take advantage of the latest supercomputer hardware.
- Combinatorial Scientific Computing and Petascale Simulations (CSCAPES) — The
CSACPES institute will focus on providing advanced new capabilities in
load balancing and parallelization toolkits for petascale computers, accelerating
the development of new automatic differentiation capabilities, and advancing
the state of the art in sparse matrix software tools.
- Performance Engineering Research Institute (PERI) — PERI will
focus on development of tools for performance modeling and prediction, as
well as automatic performance optimization and performance engineering of
high-profile applications. Education and outreach are important complementary
efforts.
- SciDAC Institute for Ultrascale Visualization — This institute
will bring together leading experts from visualization, high-performance
computing, and science application areas to make parallel visualization technology
a commodity. Achieving this goal will require extracting meaning from huge
datasets, hundreds of terabytes or more, and creating a comprehensive parallel
visualization suite that is portable across platforms.
SciDAC research projects are collaborative efforts involving teams of mathematicians,
computer scientists, and computational scientists working on major software
and algorithm development for application to problems in the scientific computing
core programs, namely, Basic Energy Sciences, High Energy Physics, Nuclear
Physics, Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Fusion Energy Sciences, and
Biological and Environmental Research. Research funded under the SciDAC program
addresses the interdisciplinary problems inherent in ultrascale computing,
problems that cannot be addressed by a single investigator or small group of
investigators.
Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology.
The nation's first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic
and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne
researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities,
and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific
problems, advance America 's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for
a better future. With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed
by UChicago
Argonne, LLC for
the U.S.
Department of Energy's Office
of Science.
For more information, please contact Eleanor Taylor (630/252-5510 or media@anl.gov) at Argonne.
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