High Performance Computing Innovation Center Enters it Third Year

In June, 2011, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory launched an aggressive initiative to boost American industry’s global competitiveness by opening the High Performance Computing Innovation Center (HPCIC). Two years later, the HPCIC continues its work with industry to broaden the use of supercomputers for the technological and business innovation that underpins the nation’s economic vitality.

The notion that the Lab’s world-class supercomputing resources and expertise should be made available to industry to spur technological and business innovation is an idea whose time has come,” said Fred Streitz, HPCIC director. “It is, after all, a matter of national security that the country continues to lead in the development of new technologies, new manufacturing capabilities or new businesses, especially amid fierce global competition. There’s a growing global consensus that HPC is the key — in the U.S., for us to maintain, and elsewhere for those striving to claim this leadership.”

A team of LLNL scientists, in partnership with engineers from Navistar, NASA, the U.S. Air Force and other industry leaders, utilized HPC modeling and simulation to develop technologies that increase semi-truck fuel efficiency by at least 17 percent.

While industry’s adoption of high end supercomputing has been hindered by barriers such as the high cost of HPC systems, the lack of software appropriate to the task, and a lack of domain expertise, the HPCIC is working to remove hurdles, to demonstrate the potential of supercomputing and to accelerate innovation for economic development.

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