BERLIN, Germany, May 22 – German researchers’ demand for High Performance Computing (HPC) power and cutting-edge supercomputing technology remains high. With the 13th edition of its bi-annual Calls for Large-Scale Projects, the Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS) awarded again close to 1 billion compute core hours to scientifically outstanding national research projects: 16 simulation projects from scientific fields such as Scientific Engineering, Meteorology, Astrophysics, Elementary Particle Physics, Nuclear Physics, and Theoretical Chemistry received a total allocation of 977 million compute core hours on GCS’s HPC systems. The consortia of national researchers whose projects were selected will have access to the GCS supercomputing resources as of immediately for a period of 12 months.

For the latest edition of its Large-Scale Calls, which closed in late February 2015, the GCS counted requests for a record-number of in sum 1.75 billion compute core hours spread over 22 research projects. While 16 applications fulfilled the very strict qualification criteria of the GCS Scientific Steering Committee, the number of compute hours allocated to the individual projects had to be cut back in almost all cases as the demand for computing time exceeded the available capacities of the GCS HPC centres HLRS (High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart), JSC (Jülich Supercomputing Centre), and LRZ (Leibniz Supercomputing Centre Garching/Munich.

Two of the approved projects feature a novelty what the use of GCS HPC resources is concerned: computing time for their simulations has been divided up between two different GCS supercomputers in order to fully leverage the specific features of the complementing system architectures: While one Scientific Engineering project uses JUQUEEN of JSC (an IBM BlueGene/Q system) and the Cray XC40-system of HLRS’s Hornet for its calculations, the second project from the field of Elementary Particle Physics utilizes both the JUQUEEN platform as well as SuperMUC of LRZ (IBM System X iDataPlex).

“The fact that requests for computing time on our HPC systems remain on such a high level confirms the added value our cutting-edge HPC technology provides to the community of national researchers and scientists,” explains Professor Dr.-Ing. Siegfried Wagner, Chairman of the GCS Scientific Steering Committee. “The technological possibilities available today paired with the expertise of both the highly skilled users as well as the first-class technological support provided by the HPC centres supply an excellent foundation to support research activities of highest complexity. This feeds justified hope for more break-through findings achieved with the help of our HPC systems,” affirms Professor Wagner.

With the 13th Call for Large-Scale Projects, the largest individual allocations of compute time on the three GCS Tier-0 HPC systems are:

Hornet of High Performance Center Stuttgart (HLRS):

• Computing time granted: 115 million core hours (plus 55 million core hours on JUQUEEN)
• Project Title: Simulation of Jet Engine and Axial Fan Noise
• Principal Investigator: Dr.-Ing. Matthias Meinke, Institute of Aerodynamics of RWTH Aachen University

JUQUEEN of Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC):

• Computing time granted: 85 million core hours
• Project Title: Hadronic corrections to the muon magnetic moment
• Principal Investigator: Prof. Kalman Szabo, Institute of Theoretical Physics, Bergische Universität Wuppertal

SuperMUC of Leibniz Supercomputing Centre Garching/Munich (LRZ):

• Computing time granted: 50 million core hours
• Project Title: Towards Resolving the Turbulent Cascade in Self-Consistent 3D Core-Collapse Supernova-Simulations
• Principal Investigator: Dr. Hans-Thomas Janka, Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Garching

The complete list of approved GCS Large-Scale Projects (13th Call) can be found at http://www.gauss-centre.eu/gauss-centre/EN/Projects/LargeScaleProjects/call-13.html.

The GCS Calls for Large-Scale Projects application procedure and criteria for decision is described in detail at www.gauss-centre.eu/large-scale-application.

About GCS Large-Scale Projects

In accordance with the mission of the Gauss Centre for Super- computing, all scientists and researchers in Germany have access to the petascale HPC systems of Germany’s leading supercomputing institution. Projects are classified as “large-scale” if they require more than 35 million compute core hours in one year on a GCS member centre’s high-end system. Computing time on the GCS systems is allocated by the GCS Scientific Steering Committee to scientifically leading, ground- breaking projects which deal with complex, demanding, and innovative simulations that would not be possible without the GCS petascale infrastructure. The projects are evaluated via a strict peer-review process on the basis of the project’s scientific and technical excellence.

About GCS

The Gauss Centre for Supercomputing (GCS) combines the three national supercom- puting centres HLRS (High Performance Computing Center Stuttgart), JSC (Jülich Supercomputing Centre), and LRZ (Leibniz Supercomputing Centre, Garching near Munich) into Germany’s Tier-0 supercomputing institution. Concertedly, the three centres provide the largest and most powerful supercomputing infrastructure in all of Europe to serve a wide range of industrial and research activities in various disciplines. They also provide top-class training and education for the national as well as the European High Performance Computing (HPC) community.

GCS is the German member of PRACE (Partnership for Advance Computing in Europe), an international non-profit association consisting of 25 member countries, whose representative organizations create a pan-European supercomputing infrastructure, providing access to computing and data management resources and services for large-scale scientific and engineering applications at the highest performance level.

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Source: GCS