After recently passing Oak Ridge National Laboratory's acceptance tests in record time for a large supercomputer, the lab's new Cray X1E system, nicknamed Phoenix, already is delivering unprecedented performance on some of the nation's most daunting "grand challenge" science problems.

"We subjected the Cray X1E system to rigorous acceptance tests, and it passed with flying colors," said Thomas Zacharia, ORNL's associate laboratory director for Computing and Computational Sciences. "We already have five grand challenge projects running on it and are seeing a lot of breakthrough science that has not been possible on other contemporary HPC systems." 

With peak performance of 18.5 teraflops, ORNL's Cray X1E is one of the most powerful high performance computing systems in the world. Most HPC systems today achieve less than 10 percent of their peak performance on the most challenging scientific problems. The Cray X1E's high-bandwidth, low-latency architecture enables it to sustain far higher percentages on these problems, making the Cray system even more powerful in practice.

The five grand challenge problems already running in production mode at large scale on ORNL's Cray X1E supercomputer are:

• Combustion simulation: The Cray X1E will make practical the first 3-D numerical simulations of an ignition flame fed by a fuel-air mix, with detailed chemistry. This will help manufacturers to design next- generation combustion devices. Simulation runs using the S3D software application can be completed in weeks, as opposed to months or years on other HPC systems.

• Precise calculations of molecular structures: Chemists are using the X1E and a new parallel-vector algorithm to perform precise (full-configuration interaction) calculations of molecular structures many times larger than were possible with other computer systems. Understanding these structures is critically important for a wide range of pursuits, from studying contaminant dispersion in the environment to developing treatments for genetic diseases.

• Plasma energy research: The X1E runs the world's fastest, most-detailed simulations of waves used to control plasma, gaseous matter superheated enough to generate massive amounts of energy. The simulation is related to the multibillion-dollar ITER project, which aims to tame plasma so it can later become a virtually inexhaustible supply of "clean" electricity. High-resolution simulations of the heated plasma take weeks, compared with years on other computer systems.

• Accelerator design: Researchers will use the X1E to help determine the optimal shape for the accelerator chamber inside the International Linear Collider. The ILC is the highest-priority future accelerator project in high- energy physics and simulations are currently under way using the Omega3P code developed under the Department of Energy's SciDAC program.

• Supernova research: The core collapse of a supernova -- a massive star at the end of its life -- creates a shock wave known as a stationary accretion shock instability (SASI) that may cause the star to explode. The X1E's computing power allows scientists to perform each 3-D SASI simulation in one to two days, compared with one month today, greatly speeding research.

"We are excited that the Cray X1E system is already enabling research communities to make breakthrough advances on a range of grand challenge science problems," said Cray Inc. president and CEO Peter Ungaro. "We are committed to helping ORNL meet its aggressive goal to create the world's most powerful computing resource for open science."