Why have a supercomputer
Plans of IT4Innovations Centre of Excellence
Supercomputer technologies represent a key part of IT4Innovations Centre of Excellence project in which High-Performance Computing (HPC) devices become effective tools of simulations, modelling and computations in various fields of research, e.g. molecular modelling, climate simulations or disaster and traffic management.
While state-of-the-art desktops and laptops hide processors as ‘hearts’ that were already developed some years ago as part of processors for supercomputers and adjusted for serial computer manufacturing, supercomputers stand for the real driving force of the development of new processors and information technologies as a whole. That is also the reason for high costs of supercomputer technologies as compared to the price of other common computing devices.
IT4Innovations Centre of Excellence project plans to acquire supercomputer (HPC) technologies in the volume exceeding EUR 20 million within 5 years of the project’s duration. In 2012 the first phase of the project intends to put into operation the so-called small cluster, i.e. a computing cluster of approximately 70 TFlop/s computing performance that will also be used by external subjects both from the academic and industrial spheres. In 2014 the so-called big cluster (main computing system) will start operating. This cluster of approximately 850 TFlop/s computing performance should rank among the top 100 most powerful supercomputers on the TOP500.org list. The centre will further include minor computing devices (SMP/NUMA system, GPU cluster), large-scale data storage, and other necessary support infrastructure (servers, network system devices, power supply and cooling systems of all device, backup power supply systems). IT4Innovations Supercomputing Centre will also dispose of a visualization centre containing effective work stations and display devices for the visualization of simulation and computation outputs.
Where is the world’s top?
Being in the top 100 is, however, far from being number one. Within the cooperation of European countries IT4Innovations Centre of Excellence has joined PRACE Research Infrastructure whose goal is to establish an ecosystem of European supercomputing centres that is open to researchers and industry partners. Major aim of this association is to build 5-6 centres of computing systems reaching the qualities of the world’s top supercomputers (approximately the top 15 on the TOP500 list).
The first system of this kind built by PRACE Research Infrastructure association is JUGENE supercomputer based in Jülich, Germany that is currently on the 12th position in the world. Another such system is the French CURIE (more details on PRACE). Costs of acquisition and maintenance of such a technology reach approximately 20 million EUR per year as it has also been agreed by the partners – the agreement speaks about an investment of 100 million EUR within 5 years. In this context it is appropriate to mention costs of similar supercomputer systems in the USA, the world’s leader in supercomputing. The third most powerful computer in the world Jaguar, located in the laboratories of the U.S. Department of Energy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee was subject to processor upgrade in 2010, by which its computing performance increased to 1.75 PFlop/s. The costs of upgraded processors and other related technologies amounted to 20 million USD, while the system infrastructure (cooling system, racks, and power supply) remained the same.
Since PRACE classification ranges the IT4Innovations Centre of Excellence project among the so-called ‘national supercomputer centres’, the acquisition and operation costs will amount to one fifth of the real costs of similar European or world’ projects.
What will supercomputers bring us?
In today’s world, supercomputers need to be seen as universal tools used virtually in all fields of research. Strong position in using supercomputer technologies is held by air and space technology research. NASA and related industrial companies take advantage of supercomputers in space flight simulations, spaceship and satellite trajectory computations or design of optimal shapes and properties of spacecraft (spaceships, space shuttles and their successors). European Airbus uses supercomputer computations and simulations in the development of new airliners where simulations replace wind tunnel testing. A large amount of world’s top supercomputing capacities are also utilized by climatologists. Specialized supercomputers provide reliable weather forecasts and simulate scenarios of natural disasters. An example can be computations carried out by American scientists simulating the spread of oil spill along the U.S. coast after Deepwater Horizon drilling rig accident in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 (for details see HERE).
Judging the CZK 500 million budget that IT4Innovations Centre of Excellence has for the supercomputer technology acquisition within the following five years, we can ask a question whether such an investment is acceptable and economically bearable for such a small country as the Czech Republic. However, considering the frequency of extreme floods in the CR in the last 20 years, it shows that extreme flood events can be expected every 5 years along with serious consequences estimated at tens of billions of CZK (1997 - 63 billion, 2002 – 73 billion, 2010 – estimated at 6 billion). Disaster prevention and management research using mathematical simulations has already become one of the flagships of the research that will be conducted in the IT4Innovations Centre of Excellence. Other research supercomputer outputs will also lead to life quality improvement both in the CR and globally. For example, the supercomputer will make it possible to intelligently evaluate traffic situation in an interval approximating the real time. Analyzing historical and actual traffic data, the supercomputer will be able to create simulation models predicting probable traffic situation. This information will subsequently be delivered to Intelligent Transportation System as well as individual cars, which will help to reduce traffic congestion and formation of traffic jams in which drivers waste their time and contribute to air pollution in cities. The system will also be able to simulate air pollution either as a consequence of anthropogenic activities (transport, explosion) or as a result of natural phenomena and disasters (temperature inversion, volcanic eruption). Other important research areas planned within the IT4Innovations Centre of Excellence include drug development making use of nanotechnologies; development of new data carrier materials; voice, speech, and information recognition in image data or development of new algorithms used in industrial product design and testing (calculations of material strength, heat stress and shape optimization).