Teams responsible for installation of the Frontier exascale supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory received recognition at ORNL’s Director’s Awards, an event hosted by lab Director Thomas Zacharia. Two teams received a Director’s Award for Outstanding Team Accomplishment for Mission Support for the design, construction and installation of Frontier, a system to be powered by […]
Meet OLCF’s Gina Tourassi, Director of National Center for Computational Sciences
November 23, 2021 by
Since Gina Tourassi began her career, computer science has come a long way. Tourassi learned programming in the 1980s starting with QBasic. It’s a programming environment that hasn’t been included with Microsoft operating systems for more than 20 years. When she first discovered her love of computational research, computer scientists were programming artificial intelligence (AI) […]
HPE’s HPC Leader Justin Hotard on the Broader Impacts and Implications of Exascale
October 29, 2021 by
In this interview with Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s SVP/GM of High Performance Computing & Mission Critical Solutions Justin Hotard, he discusses the new world to be enabled by exascale supercomputing. Among the topics he delves into: why exascale is applicable to more market sectors (read: the enterprise) than some may think and how the Cray programming environment is facilitating supercomputing’s rapidly evolving heterogeneous super power: HPC combined with AI.
Let’s Talk Exascale: Guiding the Construction of Frontier’s Mechanical Systems
October 26, 2021 by
In this episode of the Let’s Talk Exascale podcast, David Grant, high performance computing engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, talks with the lab’s Scott Gibson about Frontier, the nation’s first exascale supercomputer scheduled to be installed by the end of this year. Grant, who works in ORNL’s Laboratory Modernization Division is responsible for ensuring that supercomputers installed at the lab have the cooling capacity required to operate 24/7.
A Look Inside the US’s 1st Exascale Supercomputer Facility
September 30, 2021 by
Preparing for the nation’s first exascale system, the upcoming HPE Cray EX Frontier “Frontier” system at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), has been a colossal undertaking. Since the spring of 2020, ORNL staff members have made numerous modifications to the building and room that will house Frontier, a system that will […]
The Whole World Is Watching: ORNL’s Bernholdt & Programming Environment Team Prepare for Frontier and Exascale
July 22, 2021 by
The world’s fastest supercomputer comes with some assembly required. Frontier, the nation’s first exascale computing system, won’t come together as a whole until all pieces arrive at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory to be installed—with the eyes of the world watching—on the data center floor inside the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF). Once those components operate in harmony as advertised, David Bernholdt and his team can take time for a quick bow—and then get back to work.
OLCF Releases Storage Specs for Frontier Exascale
May 21, 2021 by
A newly enhanced I/O subsystem will support the nation’s first exascale supercomputer, the HPE Cray Frontier system, and the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF). The computational might of exascale computing, expected to have top speeds of 1 quintillion — that’s 1018, or a billion billion — calculations per second, promises to enable breakthrough discoveries across the scientific spectrum when Frontier, set to power up by year’s end, opens to full user operations in 2022, from the basics of building better nuclear reactors to insights into the origins of the universe. The I/O subsystem will consist of two major components: an in-system storage layer and a center-wide file system. The center-wide file system, called Orion, will use open-source Lustre and ZFS technologies.
Meet the Frontier Exascale Supercomputer: How Big Is a Quintillion?
March 24, 2021 by
Are all comparisons so odious, really? Some can illuminate, some can awe. HPE-Cray has put out an infographic about its Frontier exascale supercomputer, the U.S.’s first, scheduled to be shipped to Oak Ridge National Laboratory later this year. It’s got interesting comparisons that shed light on how big a quintillion is. Make that 1.5 quintillion, […]
Building an Exascale-Class Data Center for ORNL’s Incoming Frontier Supercomputer
December 14, 2020 by
Oak Ridge National Laboratory issued the following today, an update by staff science writer Coury Turczyn, on progress made in the construction of a data center capable of supporting ORNL’s Frontier exascale system, scheduled for installation next year. When the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) new exascale supercomputer, Frontier, completes installation at Oak Ridge National Laboratory […]
Another Intel 7nm Chip Delay – What Does it Mean for Aurora Exascale?
July 24, 2020 by
The saga of Intel’s inabilities to deliver a 7nm process chip and a supercomputer called Aurora to Argonne National Laboratory opened new chapters yesterday with Intel CEO Bob Swan’s statements that the company’s 7nm “Ponte Vecchio” GPU, integral to its Aurora exascale system scheduled for delivery next year, will be delayed at least six months. […]
