The peaceful atom: Japan will build the most powerful supercomputer for nuclear research
The Japanese National Institute for Quantum and Radiological Sciences (QST) has contracted Cray to supply the Cray XC50 supercomputer. Its facilities will direct nuclear research and support for the international ITER project. One of the objectives of the project is to demonstrate the feasibility of commercial use of a fusion reactor.
In more detail about the purpose of the supercomputer and its configuration, we will describe further.
/ photo Brad Montgomery CC
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As reported in The Verge, the new, yet unnamed, Cray computing system will be placed at the Rokkasho Fusion Institute, which is engaged in nuclear research and is located in Aomori Prefecture . It is the center of nuclear energy in Japan.
Supercomputer plan to launch in 2018. It will replace its predecessor - the Helios supercomputer, with a capacity of 1.5 petaflops.
The peak performance of the new supercomputer will exceed 4 petaflops.
Cray does not disclose all the features of the new machine, but it will probably work on Skylake Xeon processors and support NVIDIA Tesla cards.
The senior editor of the Top-500 resource, based on the declared power of the machine, also suggested that the supercomputer would have more than a thousand two-socket nodes.
To date, the most powerful Cray XC50 supercomputer is the Swiss Piz Daint, with a capacity of 25 petaflops. The new Japanese supercomputer will not compete with Piz Daint, but it can be considered the most productive machine for research in the field of nuclear physics. Mamoru Nakano (Mamoru Nakano), president of Cray Japan, stresses : "The speed of work and the Cray XC50 integrated software environment will allow researchers from QST to make new discoveries faster."
The system will help scientists from QST conduct research in the field of nuclear fusion and plasma physics. Access to the supercomputer will also receive about a thousand scientists from Japan and Europe. In addition, computing power will be directed to support the international ITER project (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor). The project involves researchers from China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States.
The goal of the project is to create the world's first thermonuclear reactor by 2035 and to prove the possibility of obtaining electricity using fusion (a brief video review of the project can be viewed here ). The construction of the reactor, which consists of 1 million components, is carried out in the commune of Saint-Paul-le-Durance (Saint-Paul-lès-Durance) in the south-east of France.
/ photo NNSA CC
What exactly will make the new Japanese supercomputer for the project ITER is not yet known. However, Mamoru Nakano argues that "a supercomputer will help unlock the potential of thermonuclear energy as a reliable energy resource."
Back in April 2018, Japan plans to launch the most powerful supercomputer in the world, AI Bridging Cloud (ABCI). Its performance will be 130 petaflops, which is more than the Chinese Sunway TaihuLight (93 petaflops).
ABCI will provide Tesla V100 graphics accelerators based on the Volta architecture, whose tensor cores “issue” on machine learning tasks of 120 teraflops. It is assumed that the system will have parallel storage of 20 PB and consume 3 MW.
According to Satoshi Sekiguchi, CEO of the Japanese National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, ABCI will help Japanese companies to develop and improve unmanned vehicle technologies, develop robotics and medicine, and artificial intelligence systems.
PS Several materials from the First Corporate IaaS blog:
PPS Related materials from our blog on Habré:
In more detail about the purpose of the supercomputer and its configuration, we will describe further.
/ photo Brad Montgomery CC
')
As reported in The Verge, the new, yet unnamed, Cray computing system will be placed at the Rokkasho Fusion Institute, which is engaged in nuclear research and is located in Aomori Prefecture . It is the center of nuclear energy in Japan.
Supercomputer plan to launch in 2018. It will replace its predecessor - the Helios supercomputer, with a capacity of 1.5 petaflops.
Supercomputer specifications
The peak performance of the new supercomputer will exceed 4 petaflops.
Cray does not disclose all the features of the new machine, but it will probably work on Skylake Xeon processors and support NVIDIA Tesla cards.
The senior editor of the Top-500 resource, based on the declared power of the machine, also suggested that the supercomputer would have more than a thousand two-socket nodes.
To date, the most powerful Cray XC50 supercomputer is the Swiss Piz Daint, with a capacity of 25 petaflops. The new Japanese supercomputer will not compete with Piz Daint, but it can be considered the most productive machine for research in the field of nuclear physics. Mamoru Nakano (Mamoru Nakano), president of Cray Japan, stresses : "The speed of work and the Cray XC50 integrated software environment will allow researchers from QST to make new discoveries faster."
Purpose of the new machine
The system will help scientists from QST conduct research in the field of nuclear fusion and plasma physics. Access to the supercomputer will also receive about a thousand scientists from Japan and Europe. In addition, computing power will be directed to support the international ITER project (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor). The project involves researchers from China, the EU, India, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States.
The goal of the project is to create the world's first thermonuclear reactor by 2035 and to prove the possibility of obtaining electricity using fusion (a brief video review of the project can be viewed here ). The construction of the reactor, which consists of 1 million components, is carried out in the commune of Saint-Paul-le-Durance (Saint-Paul-lès-Durance) in the south-east of France.
/ photo NNSA CC
What exactly will make the new Japanese supercomputer for the project ITER is not yet known. However, Mamoru Nakano argues that "a supercomputer will help unlock the potential of thermonuclear energy as a reliable energy resource."
Another Japanese project - AI Bridging Cloud
Back in April 2018, Japan plans to launch the most powerful supercomputer in the world, AI Bridging Cloud (ABCI). Its performance will be 130 petaflops, which is more than the Chinese Sunway TaihuLight (93 petaflops).
ABCI will provide Tesla V100 graphics accelerators based on the Volta architecture, whose tensor cores “issue” on machine learning tasks of 120 teraflops. It is assumed that the system will have parallel storage of 20 PB and consume 3 MW.
According to Satoshi Sekiguchi, CEO of the Japanese National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, ABCI will help Japanese companies to develop and improve unmanned vehicle technologies, develop robotics and medicine, and artificial intelligence systems.
PS Several materials from the First Corporate IaaS blog:
- How to handle peak loads with IaaS
- Cloud computing in the automotive industry: IaaS usage cases
- Unboxing NetApp AFF A300 DSS: Specifications and Inside Look
PPS Related materials from our blog on Habré:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/351816/
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