NNSA Purchasing $105M HPE Cray EX Supercomputer, to be Sited at Los Alamos

Los Alamos National Laboratory has announced a contract for a new HPE supercomputer to be installed in spring of 2022 with quadrupled performance over the existing system for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The $105 million HPE Cray EX supercomputer, called Crossroads, will replace Cray’s Trinity system and will be […]

Sandia Selects SoftIron File and Object Storage for Stria Cluster

Sandia National Laboratories Vanguard program has selected SoftIron, Ltd., to provide supplemental file and object storage for Sandia’s ARM-based Stria high performance computing cluster.

Stria supports the petascale Astra supercomputer – which Sandia said is the fastest ARM-based system on the TOP500 listing of the world’s most powerful computers – as a development system for preparing software releases and codes to be used on Astra.

Penguin Computing to Deploy Magma Supercomputer with Intel Xeon Platinum 9200 Processors at LLNL

At SC19, Penguin Computing announced a powerful new supercomputer coming to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Called Magma, the system was procured through the Commodity Technology Systems (CTS-1) contract with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and is one of the first deployments of Intel Xeon Platinum 9200 series processors with support from CoolIT Systems complete direct liquid cooling and the Intel Omni-Path interconnect.

NNSA Explorations: ARM for Supercomputing

Howard Pritchard from LANL and Simon Hammond from Sandia gave this talk at the Argonne Training Program on Extreme-Scale Computing 2019. “Sandia National Laboratories has been an active partner in leveraging our Arm-based platform since its early design, and featuring it in the deployment of the world’s largest Arm-based supercomputer, is a strategic investment for the DOE and the industry as a whole as we race toward achieving exascale computing.”

Cray to Build El Capitan Exascale Supercomputer at LLNL

Today the Department of Energy announced that Cray will build the NNSA’s first exascale supercomputer, “El Capitan.” To be hosted at LLNL, El Capitan will have a peak performance of more than 1.5 exaflops and an anticipated delivery in late 2022. El Capitan will be DOE’s third exascale-class supercomputer, following Argonne National Laboratory’s “Aurora” and Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s “Frontier” system. All three DOE exascale supercomputers will be built by Cray utilizing their Shasta architecture, Slingshot interconnect and new software platform.

LANL Solicits Bids for 18 MW Crossroads Supercomputer for Delivery in 2021

The next big supercomputer is out for bid. An RFP was released today for Crossroads, an 18 Megawatt system that will support the nation’s Stockpile Stewardship Program. “Los Alamos National Laboratory is proud to serve as the home of Crossroads. This high-performance computer will continue the Laboratory’s tradition of deploying unique capabilities to achieve our mission of national security science,” said Thom Mason from LANL.”

LLNL Unveils NNSA’s Sierra, World’s Third Fastest Supercomputer

Today LLNL unveiled Sierra, one of the world’s fastest supercomputers, at a dedication ceremony to celebrate the system’s completion. “The next frontier of supercomputing lies in artificial intelligence,” said John Kelly, senior vice president, Cognitive Solutions and IBM Research. “IBM’s decades-long partnership with LLNL has allowed us to build Sierra from the ground up with the unique design and architecture needed for applying AI to massive data sets. The tremendous insights researchers are seeing will only accelerate high performance computing for research and business.”

The Strategic Foundation of Exascale Computing in the USA

Exascale computing continues to work its way into the consciousness of wider and more diverse audiences, creating demand for more explanation of what it is and what the U.S. initiatives are that have forged the strategic foundation for making exascale in the U.S. a reality. “Two terms that often land in the middle of these conversations begging for some clarification are the Exascale Computing Initiative (ECI) and the Exascale Computing Project (ECP).”

ARM goes Big: HPE Builds Petaflop Supercomputer for Sandia

Today HPE announced plans to deliver the world’s largest Arm supercomputer. As part of the Vanguard program, Astra, the new Arm-based system, will be used by the NNSA to run advanced modeling and simulation workloads for addressing areas such as national security, energy and science. “By introducing Arm processors with the HPE Apollo 70, a purpose-built HPC architecture, we are bringing powerful elements, like optimal memory performance and greater density, to supercomputers that existing technologies in the market cannot match,” said Mike Vildibill, vice president, Advanced Technologies Group, HPE.

Behind the Scenes – HPC at Sandia

In this video, Sandia engineers provide a behind-the-scenes look at the lab’s efforts centered around High Performance Computing. “The Sandia team supports researchers who solve critical national and global problems – a challenging job with high impact results.Our unique mission responsibilities in the nuclear weapons program create a foundation from which we leverage capabilities, enabling us to solve complex national security problems.”