Bristol to Utilize BlueCrystal System for Research

December 13, 2013

Dec. 13 — A £2 million investment has increased the capability and power of the state-of-the-art BlueCrystal High Performance Computer (HPC) facility, which allows over 650 researchers and students to process vast amounts of complex data at record speeds.

Supercomputers are seen as the ‘third pillar’ of modern research and within the University are used in areas such as climate research, earth science, drug discovery, mathematics, physics, molecular modelling and aerospace engineering.

The University has invested £12 million in its Advanced Computing facilities since 2006, making it one of the country’s leading centres.

The latest BlueCrystal system will be five times as powerful as its predecessor and the upgrade is a result of a collaboration with ClusterVision and Dell.

Dr. Ian Stewart, Director of the University’s Advanced Computing Research Centre, said, “This new machine underscores the far-sighted commitment to HPC by the University and reinforces Bristol’s position as one of the leading centres for HPC in the UK.”

“It will provide the robust, scalable and innovative platform required to meet the diverse interests and requirements of our world class research community.  Having a supercomputer of this size contributes significantly to University research income and will play an increasingly important role in teaching.”

Major users include climatologists in the School of Geographical Sciences who are developing models to predict climate change. These models require huge amounts of computing power and disk space, with a typical simulation taking months to run and generating terabytes of model output.

Such models will help to identify where in the world may be at the highest risk of flooding. It also contributes to the ability of climate scientists to monitor ice sheets in the Antarctic.

Another important area of research which will benefit from the HPC’s capabilities is Social and Community Medicine, with the globally recognised Children of the 90s long-term health research project increasingly needing to analyse vast quantities of data collected from the 14,000 mothers enrolled during pregnancy in 1991 and 1992 and their resulting family.

It’s hoped that the new supercomputer will be a resource for the whole city, with opportunities for small businesses and schools to have access.

Furthermore, the University has been working alongside its partners to offer new opportunities to students, plugging the current skills gap in HPC through internships, placements, sponsorship and guest lectures.

ClusterVision has supplied, delivered and installed the Dell based system with other elements sourced from a variety of vendors including Bright Computing, Intel, NVIDIA, Panasas and Allinea.

Mark Allsopp, UK Country Manager for ClusterVision, said, “ClusterVision is proud to build on our long relationship with the University of Bristol’s Advanced Computing Research Centre. We look forward to working with the University to continue exploring how the latest technology in computing, storage and software can be brought together to provide a significant computational and scientific advantage for the University of Bristol and the wider South West region.”

Dr Stephen Wheat, Intel’s General Manager for HPC, said, “Intel is delighted to be chosen as the supplier of choice for the University of Bristol’s new BlueCrystal High Performance Computer.  Bristol and Intel have a strong and positive history on the deployment of Xeon processor based systems to meet Bristol’s extreme computing demands.”

“Bristol’s choice to base their next generation computational workhorse on the latest Intel Xeon E5-2600 processor and Intel Xeon Phi co-processor, all interconnected with Intel True Scale fabric, provides a state-of-the-art multi-core and many-core computing platform to extend their positive experience well into the future with Intel Inside.”

David Lecomber, CEO of Allinea Software, said, “The BlueCrystal system provides a platform that will deliver breakthrough results through the development of advanced software models and we are delighted that our software tools and training will be a part of enabling this progress.”

Bart Mellenbergh, Director of HPC Solutions in EMEA at Dell, said, “The University of Bristol is an important partner for Dell in the UK high-performance technical computing space. We will work with the University to help their students to better develop their skills in HPC and achieve success.”

“Dell will also support the University’s initiatives to make HPC accessible to the mid-market segment of UK industry.   We are extremely excited about teaming the University’s students, energy and knowhow and Dell’s technology and market reach to make a positive impact on the UK high-tech economy.”

—–

Source: University of Bristol

Subscribe to HPCwire's Weekly Update!

Be the most informed person in the room! Stay ahead of the tech trends with industry updates delivered to you every week!

MLPerf Inference 4.0 Results Showcase GenAI; Nvidia Still Dominates

March 28, 2024

There were no startling surprises in the latest MLPerf Inference benchmark (4.0) results released yesterday. Two new workloads — Llama 2 and Stable Diffusion XL — were added to the benchmark suite as MLPerf continues Read more…

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing power it brings to artificial intelligence.  Nvidia's DGX Read more…

Call for Participation in Workshop on Potential NSF CISE Quantum Initiative

March 26, 2024

Editor’s Note: Next month there will be a workshop to discuss what a quantum initiative led by NSF’s Computer, Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate could entail. The details are posted below in a Ca Read more…

Waseda U. Researchers Reports New Quantum Algorithm for Speeding Optimization

March 25, 2024

Optimization problems cover a wide range of applications and are often cited as good candidates for quantum computing. However, the execution time for constrained combinatorial optimization applications on quantum device Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at the network layer threatens to make bigger and brawnier pro Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HBM3E memory as well as the the ability to train 1 trillion pa Read more…

MLPerf Inference 4.0 Results Showcase GenAI; Nvidia Still Dominates

March 28, 2024

There were no startling surprises in the latest MLPerf Inference benchmark (4.0) results released yesterday. Two new workloads — Llama 2 and Stable Diffusion Read more…

Q&A with Nvidia’s Chief of DGX Systems on the DGX-GB200 Rack-scale System

March 27, 2024

Pictures of Nvidia's new flagship mega-server, the DGX GB200, on the GTC show floor got favorable reactions on social media for the sheer amount of computing po Read more…

NVLink: Faster Interconnects and Switches to Help Relieve Data Bottlenecks

March 25, 2024

Nvidia’s new Blackwell architecture may have stolen the show this week at the GPU Technology Conference in San Jose, California. But an emerging bottleneck at Read more…

Who is David Blackwell?

March 22, 2024

During GTC24, co-founder and president of NVIDIA Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell GPU. This GPU itself is heavily optimized for AI work, boasting 192GB of HB Read more…

Nvidia Looks to Accelerate GenAI Adoption with NIM

March 19, 2024

Today at the GPU Technology Conference, Nvidia launched a new offering aimed at helping customers quickly deploy their generative AI applications in a secure, s Read more…

The Generative AI Future Is Now, Nvidia’s Huang Says

March 19, 2024

We are in the early days of a transformative shift in how business gets done thanks to the advent of generative AI, according to Nvidia CEO and cofounder Jensen Read more…

Nvidia’s New Blackwell GPU Can Train AI Models with Trillions of Parameters

March 18, 2024

Nvidia's latest and fastest GPU, codenamed Blackwell, is here and will underpin the company's AI plans this year. The chip offers performance improvements from Read more…

Nvidia Showcases Quantum Cloud, Expanding Quantum Portfolio at GTC24

March 18, 2024

Nvidia’s barrage of quantum news at GTC24 this week includes new products, signature collaborations, and a new Nvidia Quantum Cloud for quantum developers. Wh Read more…

Alibaba Shuts Down its Quantum Computing Effort

November 30, 2023

In case you missed it, China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba has shut down its quantum computing research effort. It’s not entirely clear what drove the change. Read more…

Nvidia H100: Are 550,000 GPUs Enough for This Year?

August 17, 2023

The GPU Squeeze continues to place a premium on Nvidia H100 GPUs. In a recent Financial Times article, Nvidia reports that it expects to ship 550,000 of its lat Read more…

Shutterstock 1285747942

AMD’s Horsepower-packed MI300X GPU Beats Nvidia’s Upcoming H200

December 7, 2023

AMD and Nvidia are locked in an AI performance battle – much like the gaming GPU performance clash the companies have waged for decades. AMD has claimed it Read more…

DoD Takes a Long View of Quantum Computing

December 19, 2023

Given the large sums tied to expensive weapon systems – think $100-million-plus per F-35 fighter – it’s easy to forget the U.S. Department of Defense is a Read more…

Synopsys Eats Ansys: Does HPC Get Indigestion?

February 8, 2024

Recently, it was announced that Synopsys is buying HPC tool developer Ansys. Started in Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1970 as Swanson Analysis Systems, Inc. (SASI) by John Swanson (and eventually renamed), Ansys serves the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)/multiphysics engineering simulation market. Read more…

Choosing the Right GPU for LLM Inference and Training

December 11, 2023

Accelerating the training and inference processes of deep learning models is crucial for unleashing their true potential and NVIDIA GPUs have emerged as a game- Read more…

Intel’s Server and PC Chip Development Will Blur After 2025

January 15, 2024

Intel's dealing with much more than chip rivals breathing down its neck; it is simultaneously integrating a bevy of new technologies such as chiplets, artificia Read more…

Baidu Exits Quantum, Closely Following Alibaba’s Earlier Move

January 5, 2024

Reuters reported this week that Baidu, China’s giant e-commerce and services provider, is exiting the quantum computing development arena. Reuters reported � Read more…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

Comparing NVIDIA A100 and NVIDIA L40S: Which GPU is Ideal for AI and Graphics-Intensive Workloads?

October 30, 2023

With long lead times for the NVIDIA H100 and A100 GPUs, many organizations are looking at the new NVIDIA L40S GPU, which it’s a new GPU optimized for AI and g Read more…

Shutterstock 1179408610

Google Addresses the Mysteries of Its Hypercomputer 

December 28, 2023

When Google launched its Hypercomputer earlier this month (December 2023), the first reaction was, "Say what?" It turns out that the Hypercomputer is Google's t Read more…

AMD MI3000A

How AMD May Get Across the CUDA Moat

October 5, 2023

When discussing GenAI, the term "GPU" almost always enters the conversation and the topic often moves toward performance and access. Interestingly, the word "GPU" is assumed to mean "Nvidia" products. (As an aside, the popular Nvidia hardware used in GenAI are not technically... Read more…

Shutterstock 1606064203

Meta’s Zuckerberg Puts Its AI Future in the Hands of 600,000 GPUs

January 25, 2024

In under two minutes, Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, laid out the company's AI plans, which included a plan to build an artificial intelligence system with the eq Read more…

Google Introduces ‘Hypercomputer’ to Its AI Infrastructure

December 11, 2023

Google ran out of monikers to describe its new AI system released on December 7. Supercomputer perhaps wasn't an apt description, so it settled on Hypercomputer Read more…

China Is All In on a RISC-V Future

January 8, 2024

The state of RISC-V in China was discussed in a recent report released by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The report, entitled "E Read more…

Intel Won’t Have a Xeon Max Chip with New Emerald Rapids CPU

December 14, 2023

As expected, Intel officially announced its 5th generation Xeon server chips codenamed Emerald Rapids at an event in New York City, where the focus was really o Read more…

IBM Quantum Summit: Two New QPUs, Upgraded Qiskit, 10-year Roadmap and More

December 4, 2023

IBM kicks off its annual Quantum Summit today and will announce a broad range of advances including its much-anticipated 1121-qubit Condor QPU, a smaller 133-qu Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire