Building Supercomputers with Raspberries

By Nicole Hemsoth

May 22, 2013

At some point in the not-too-distant future, building powerful, miniature computing systems will be considered a hobby for high schoolers, just as robotics or even Lego-building are today.

That could be made possible through recent advancements made with the Raspberry Pi computers. These Linux-based computers are as small as a credit card and only cost about 25 to 35 dollars. Last year, the University of Southampton’s Simon Cox coupled 64 of these little systems together to form his own miniature supercomputer.

“As soon as we were able to source sufficient Raspberry Pi computers we wanted to see if it was possible to link them together into a supercomputer,” said Cox on how he created a small but powerful supercomputer on Raspberry Pi’s. “We installed and built all of the necessary software on the Pi starting from a standard Debian Wheezy system image and we have published a guide so you can build your own supercomputer.”

As seen in the diagram below, the diminutive processors are brought physically together by Legos while MPI serve as the interconnect system.

Joshua Kiepert, PhD candidate at Boise State, also got involved in building supercomputers out of the Raspberry Pi machines, completing a 32-node cluster that came in at a cost of just under $2000.

“In order to keep the cluster size to a minimum while maintaining ease of access,” Kiepert said in explaining how the computers were clustered, “the RPis (Raspberry Pis) were stacked in groups of eight using PCB-to-PCB standoffs with enough room in between them for a reasonable amount of air flow and component clearance.”

The advantage, according to Kiepert, to building his own system is the ability to outfit and customize based solely on his requirements. Per Kiepert, “by building my own cluster I could outfit it with anything I might need directly.”

Such customization included side-stepping the Pi’s micro-USB power port for a 5-volt pin that attached to the machines’ I/O ports. Further, Kiepert overclocked the Pis when he needed more processing power to run his simulations. With that said, the performance did still leave a little to be desired, according to Kiepert.

This story on fun, creative, and cost-effective ways to build supercomputers could actually represent a significant tool for today’s young learners who will grow up with computers, and in some cases supercomputers, all around them. Understanding the dynamics and logistics of high-performance computing early is important in maintaining interest in the field later in life.

“We want to see this low-cost system as a starting point to inspire and enable students to apply high-performance computing and data handling to tackle complex engineering and scientific challenges as part of our ongoing outreach activities,” Cox concluded.

Related Articles

Running Computational Fluid Dynamics in the Cloud

HPC and the True Cost of Cloud

CUDA-Designed Robot: It’s a Hit!

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!

Quantum Market, Though Small, will Grow 22% and Hit $1.5B in 2026

December 7, 2023

Few markets as small as the quantum information sciences market generate as much lively discussion. Hyperion Research pegged the worldwide quantum market at $848 million for 2023 and expects it to reach ~$1.5 billion in Read more…

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 its new Instinct MI300X GPU is the fastest AI chip in the worl Read more…

Finding Opportunity in the High-Growth “AI Market” 

December 6, 2023

 “What’s the size of the AI market?” It’s a totally normal question for anyone to ask me. After all, I’m an analyst, and my company, Intersect360 Research, specializes in scalable, high-performance datacenter Read more…

Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of SuperNODEs …
(They did)

December 6, 2023

Clustering resources for faster performance is not new. In the early days of clustering, the Beowulf project demonstrated that high performance was achievable from commodity hardware. These days, the "Beowulf cluster mem Read more…

The IBM-Meta AI Alliance Promotes Safe and Open AI Progress

December 5, 2023

IBM and Meta have co-launched a massive industry-academic-government alliance to shepherd AI development. The new group has united under the AI Alliance banner to promote responsible innovation in AI. Historically, techn Read more…

AWS Solution Channel

Shutterstock 2030529413

Reezocar Rethinks Car Buying Using Computer Vision and ML on AWS

Overview

Every car that finds its way to a landfill marks another dent in the fight for a sustainable future. Reezocar, an online hub for buying and selling used cars, has a mission to change this. Read more…

QCT Solution Channel

QCT and Intel Codeveloped QCT DevCloud Program to Jumpstart HPC and AI Development

Organizations and developers face a variety of issues in developing and testing HPC and AI applications. Challenges they face can range from simply having access to a wide variety of hardware, frameworks, and toolkits to time spent on installation, development, testing, and troubleshooting which can lead to increases in cost. Read more…

ChatGPT Friendly Programming Languages
(hello-world.llm)

December 4, 2023

 Using OpenAI's ChatGPT to write code is an alluring goal. Describing "what to" solve, but not "how to solve" would be a huge breakthrough in computer programming. Alas, we are nowhere near this capability. In particula Read more…

Quantum Market, Though Small, will Grow 22% and Hit $1.5B in 2026

December 7, 2023

Few markets as small as the quantum information sciences market generate as much lively discussion. Hyperion Research pegged the worldwide quantum market at $84 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…

Finding Opportunity in the High-Growth “AI Market” 

December 6, 2023

 “What’s the size of the AI market?” It’s a totally normal question for anyone to ask me. After all, I’m an analyst, and my company, Intersect360 Res Read more…

Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of SuperNODEs …
(They did)

December 6, 2023

Clustering resources for faster performance is not new. In the early days of clustering, the Beowulf project demonstrated that high performance was achievable f Read more…

The IBM-Meta AI Alliance Promotes Safe and Open AI Progress

December 5, 2023

IBM and Meta have co-launched a massive industry-academic-government alliance to shepherd AI development. The new group has united under the AI Alliance banner Read more…

Shutterstock 1336284338

ChatGPT Friendly Programming Languages
(hello-world.llm)

December 4, 2023

 Using OpenAI's ChatGPT to write code is an alluring goal. Describing "what to" solve, but not "how to solve" would be a huge breakthrough in computer programm 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…

The Annual SCinet Mandala

November 30, 2023

Perhaps you have seen images of Tibetan Buddhists creating beautiful and intricate images with colored sand. These sand mandalas can take weeks to create, only Read more…

CORNELL I-WAY DEMONSTRATION PITS PARASITE AGAINST VICTIM

October 6, 1995

Ithaca, NY --Visitors to this year's Supercomputing '95 (SC'95) conference will witness a life-and-death struggle between parasite and victim, using virtual Read more…

SGI POWERS VIRTUAL OPERATING ROOM USED IN SURGEON TRAINING

October 6, 1995

Surgery simulations to date have largely been created through the development of dedicated applications requiring considerable programming and computer graphi Read more…

U.S. Will Relax Export Restrictions on Supercomputers

October 6, 1995

New York, NY -- U.S. President Bill Clinton has announced that he will definitely relax restrictions on exports of high-performance computers, giving a boost Read more…

Dutch HPC Center Will Have 20 GFlop, 76-Node SP2 Online by 1996

October 6, 1995

Amsterdam, the Netherlands -- SARA, (Stichting Academisch Rekencentrum Amsterdam), Academic Computing Services of Amsterdam recently announced that it has pur Read more…

Cray Delivers J916 Compact Supercomputer to Solvay Chemical

October 6, 1995

Eagan, Minn. -- Cray Research Inc. has delivered a Cray J916 low-cost compact supercomputer and Cray's UniChem client/server computational chemistry software Read more…

NEC Laboratory Reviews First Year of Cooperative Projects

October 6, 1995

Sankt Augustin, Germany -- NEC C&C (Computers and Communication) Research Laboratory at the GMD Technopark has wrapped up its first year of operation. Read more…

Sun and Sybase Say SQL Server 11 Benchmarks at 4544.60 tpmC

October 6, 1995

Mountain View, Calif. -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Sybase, Inc. recently announced the first benchmark results for SQL Server 11. The result represents a n Read more…

New Study Says Parallel Processing Market Will Reach $14B in 1999

October 6, 1995

Mountain View, Calif. -- A study by the Palo Alto Management Group (PAMG) indicates the market for parallel processing systems will increase at more than 4 Read more…

Leading Solution Providers

Contributors

SC23 Booth Videos

Achronix @ SC23
AMD @ SC23
AWS @ SC23
Altair @ SC23
CoolIT @ SC23
Cornelis Networks @ SC23
CoreHive @ SC23
DDC @ SC23
HPE @ SC23 with Justin Hotard
HPE @ SC23 with Trish Damkroger
Intel @ SC23
Intelligent Light @ SC23
Lenovo @ SC23
Penguin Solutions @ SC23
QCT Intel @ SC23
Tyan AMD @ SC23
Tyan Intel @ SC23
HPCwire LIVE from SC23 Playlist

CORNELL I-WAY DEMONSTRATION PITS PARASITE AGAINST VICTIM

October 6, 1995

Ithaca, NY --Visitors to this year's Supercomputing '95 (SC'95) conference will witness a life-and-death struggle between parasite and victim, using virtual Read more…

SGI POWERS VIRTUAL OPERATING ROOM USED IN SURGEON TRAINING

October 6, 1995

Surgery simulations to date have largely been created through the development of dedicated applications requiring considerable programming and computer graphi Read more…

U.S. Will Relax Export Restrictions on Supercomputers

October 6, 1995

New York, NY -- U.S. President Bill Clinton has announced that he will definitely relax restrictions on exports of high-performance computers, giving a boost Read more…

Dutch HPC Center Will Have 20 GFlop, 76-Node SP2 Online by 1996

October 6, 1995

Amsterdam, the Netherlands -- SARA, (Stichting Academisch Rekencentrum Amsterdam), Academic Computing Services of Amsterdam recently announced that it has pur Read more…

Cray Delivers J916 Compact Supercomputer to Solvay Chemical

October 6, 1995

Eagan, Minn. -- Cray Research Inc. has delivered a Cray J916 low-cost compact supercomputer and Cray's UniChem client/server computational chemistry software Read more…

NEC Laboratory Reviews First Year of Cooperative Projects

October 6, 1995

Sankt Augustin, Germany -- NEC C&C (Computers and Communication) Research Laboratory at the GMD Technopark has wrapped up its first year of operation. Read more…

Sun and Sybase Say SQL Server 11 Benchmarks at 4544.60 tpmC

October 6, 1995

Mountain View, Calif. -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Sybase, Inc. recently announced the first benchmark results for SQL Server 11. The result represents a n Read more…

New Study Says Parallel Processing Market Will Reach $14B in 1999

October 6, 1995

Mountain View, Calif. -- A study by the Palo Alto Management Group (PAMG) indicates the market for parallel processing systems will increase at more than 4 Read more…

  • arrow
  • Click Here for More Headlines
  • arrow
HPCwire