High-Performance Computing
MIT Adds Supercomputing Center
The MIT Lincoln Laboratory established a new supercomputing center in April to provide more than
1,000 MIT researchers with access to high-performance computing (HPC)
cluster nodes.
The Lincoln Laboratory Supercomputing Center (LLSC) features an interactive, on-demand parallel computing system
running thousands of processors that will enable MIT researchers "to
process larger sets of sensor data, create higher-fidelity simulations,
and develop entirely new algorithms," according to information on the
lab's site. The center is also "extremely" green, with computers
running 93 percent carbon-free, according to information from MIT.
Albert
Reuther, manager of LLSC, said the center is unlike other
supercomputing centers because of its "focus on interactive
supercomputing for high-performance data analysis" and relatively low
carbon footprint.
Jeremy Kepner, laboratory fellow and head of
the LLSC, said MIT engineers, scientists, faculty and students will
use the facility "to conduct research in diverse fields such as space
observations, robotic vehicles, communications, cybersecurity, machine
learning, sensor processing, electronic devices, bioinformatics and
air traffic control."
The LLSC is based in part on the lab's
LLGrid infrastructure, which the MIT Lincoln Laboratory established in
2003 and deployed for full lab use in 2006. Originally, the LLGrid was
composed of a single 16-processor system, and today it has grown to
become a 1,500-processor interactive, parallel computing system.
Further information about the Lincoln Laboratory Supercomputing Center can be found on MIT Lincoln Laboratory's site.
About the Author
Leila Meyer is a technology writer based in British Columbia. She can be reached at leilameyer@gmail.com.
