April 4 — Texas A&M University’s High Performance Research Computing (HPRC) center was recently named an Intel Parallel Computing Center, or Intel PCC.

The Intel PCC program provides funding to universities, institutions and research labs to modernize key community codes used across a wide range of disciplines to run on current state-of-the-art parallel architectures. The primary focus is to modernize applications to increase parallelism and scalability through optimizations that leverage cores, caches, threads, and vector capabilities of microprocessors and coprocessors.

HPRC will work to develop open-source software focusing on simulation of flows through micropores, such as those found in rocks involved in oil and gas extraction, by extending OpenFOAM, a popular open-source simulation software.

Texas A&M Vice President for Research Glen A. Laine said, “Working with Intel not only benefits Texas A&M by giving us access to Intel’s vast expertise, but it also benefits our researchers involved in the project, the entire research enterprise at Texas A&M, as well as future users of the enhancements that HPRC works to develop.”

In becoming an IPCC, Texas A&M joins other universities in the country including Stanford University, Princeton University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Purdue University, Indiana University, and The University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Advanced Computing Center, among others.

“HPRC is proud to be recognized as an Intel Parallel Computing Center,” said Honggao Liu, director of High Performance Research Computing. “At HPRC we use high-performance computing to unite experts in numerous fields of study. This grant and multi-disciplinary project will allow us to better understand and solve issues within this critical software.”

“Code modernization for scientific and industrial research is critical to advancing the pace of discovery and innovation,” said Charles Wuischpard, vice president and general manager of High Performance Computing Platforms Group at Intel.  “Texas A&M joining the Intel Parallel Computing Center program will have significant impact on modernizing OpenFOAM codes for Intel architecture with broad and lasting influence on the community for years to come”

About High Performance Research Computing (HPRC) at Texas A&M University

HPRC is an interdisciplinary research center in the Division of Research. Their mission is to enable research and discoveries that advance sciences and technologies. HPRC deploys and operates advanced computing and data resources to enable computational and data-enabled research activities of students, faculty, and staff at Texas A&M University. HPRC also provides consulting, technical documentation, and training to support users of these resources. To learn more, visit http://hprc.tamu.edu.

About Research at Texas A&M University

As one of the world’s leading research institutions, Texas A&M is at the forefront in making significant contributions to scholarship and discovery, including that of science and technology. Research conducted at Texas A&M represented annual expenditures of more than $866.6 million in fiscal year 2015. Texas A&M ranked in the top 20 of the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development survey (2014), based on expenditures of more than $854 million in fiscal year 2014. Texas A&M’s research creates new knowledge that provides basic, fundamental and applied contributions resulting, in many cases, in economic benefits to the state, nation and world. To learn more, visit http://research.tamu.edu.

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Source: Texas A&M University