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2019

The Sycamore quantum processor. Photograph by Erik Lucero/GoogleScience

Quantum Processors are Now Challenging Conventional HPC Systems

To prove quantum supremacy, a joint research team from Google Inc., NASA Ames Research Center, and the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), needed to rule out that classical supercomputers could perform computational tasks at the same speed as Google’s Sycamore quantum computer. So, they came to the…
Andrea Schneibel
October 23, 2019
Science

ORNL Celebrates First National Exascale Day on October 18

On October 18, the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) will celebrate the first-ever National Exascale Day. The holiday—an initiative of DOE’s Exascale Computing Project (ECP) and Cray, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company—honors scientists and researchers who will make groundbreaking discoveries with the help of some…
Andrea Schneibel
October 17, 2019
Science

2019 Gordon Bell Finalists Powered by Summit

It has been a little over a year since the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), a US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility, officially debuted the Summit supercomputer at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Since then, the 200-petaflop IBM AC922 system has maintained its position…
Will Wells
October 10, 2019
configurational ensemble (a collection of 3D structures) of an intrinsically disordered proteinScience

Titan Supercomputer and Spallation Neutron Source Unite to Probe the Inner Workings of c-Src kinase

Proteins are the workhorses of our body’s cells, performing vital functions we can’t live without—everything from helping form antibodies to transporting nutrients to providing structure for the cells themselves. The individual role of each protein can be determined by studying its unique three-dimensional structure. However, one particular class of protein…
Coury Turczyn
October 3, 2019
Events

ORNL Staff Highlight OpenACC’s Role in HPC at Annual Meeting

The OLCF’s Director of Science Jack Wells gave a keynote talk at the 2019 OpenACC Annual Meeting last week about the OLCF’s experiences with and plans for OpenACC in past and future HPC architectures. OpenMP and OpenACC are widely used directive-based application program interfaces (APIs) that allow computer scientists and…
Rachel McDowell
September 12, 2019
GE's GENESIS solver (right) preserves many more wake details of interest in the flow field compared with a commercial solver (left). Image Credit: University of KansasScience

GPUs Power GE Code at OLCF Hackathons

The ability to simulate turbulent phenomena using high-performance computing (HPC) can provide industry with important insights for efficient engine design. Second only to the ability to perform these critical simulations is the speed at which they run. If a company can run a model more quickly, the number of possible…
Rachel McDowell
September 12, 2019
Science

CAAR Partnerships for Frontier Announced

In preparation for the Frontier supercomputer, the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) has selected eight research projects to participate in its Center for Accelerated Application Readiness (CAAR) program. Through CAAR, the OLCF will partner with application core developers, vendor partners, and OLCF staff members…
Will Wells
September 4, 2019
Image Credit: Carlos Jones, ORNLScience

ORNL-VA Collaboration Targets Veteran Suicide Epidemic

More than 6,000 veterans died by suicide in 2016, and from 2005 to 2016, the rate of veteran suicides in the United States increased by more than 25 percent. Suicide prevention is the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA’s) highest priority—so much so that in recent years, the VA has…
Rachel McDowell
August 29, 2019
Image Credit: iStockScience

From Simulation to Automation in a Data-Rich World

In a farewell nod to Titan, scheduled to be decommissioned in August 2019, we present a short series of features highlighting some of Titan’s impactful contributions to scientific research. Long before the first computers were invented, intelligent robots appeared in myths, stories, and other works of fiction. In recent years,…
Rachel McDowell
August 29, 2019
Four of the seven featured ADW interns (left to right): Shuto Araki, Emily Costa, Yuya Kawakami, and Sajal Dash.People

Summer Interns Gain Hands-On Experience at Massive Scale

Each year, the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) welcomes a new group of summer interns from a wide range of backgrounds. Through opportunities offered by the lab and Oak Ridge Associated Universities, these interns are given a unique educational and professional opportunity that introduces them…
Will Wells
August 29, 2019
Science

Igniting a New Class of Combustion Research

In a farewell nod to Titan, scheduled to be decommissioned in August 2019, we present a short series of features highlighting some of Titan’s impactful contributions to scientific research. The internal combustion engine has been around since the 19th century and remains the most affordable, reliable way to power the…
Katie Elyce Jones
August 1, 2019
Science

Galactic Winds Demystified

Using the Titan supercomputer at the US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a team of astrophysicists created a set of galactic wind simulations of the highest resolution ever performed. The simulations will allow researchers to gather and interpret more accurate, detailed data that explains how galactic winds affect…
Elizabeth Rosenthal
August 1, 2019
Science

ALCC Program Awards 6 Million Hours on OLCF Resources

Each year, researchers are awarded computing hours at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF)—a US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility located at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)—through the DOE Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research’s (ASCR’s) Leadership Computing Challenge (ALCC). This year, 21 research…
Will Wells
July 31, 2019
PeopleTechnology

OLCF and Tech Company Providentia Worldwide Build Intelligence System for Supercomputer Cooling Plant

The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) and technology consulting company Providentia Worldwide LLC recently collaborated to develop an intelligence system that combines real-time updates from the IBM AC922 Summit supercomputer with local weather and operational data from its adjacent cooling plant, with the goal of optimizing Summit’s energy efficiency.…
Katie Elyce Jones
July 31, 2019
The fungus Laccaria bicolor, in green, is shown colonizing the root of a natural host Populus trichocarpa. A better understanding of plant-fungi symbioses could lead to engineering plant-fungal associations and improve nitrogen and nutrition uptake along with plants’ resistance to drought and pathogens, according to an Oak Ridge National Laboratory-led research team. Credit: Jessy Labbe/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy and Kevin Cope/University of Wisconsin, MadisonScience

ORNL Scientists Make Fundamental Discovery to Creating Better Crops

Written by: Stephanie Seay, Oak Ridge National Laboratory A team of scientists led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have discovered the specific gene that controls an important symbiotic relationship between plants and soil fungi, and successfully facilitated the symbiosis in a plant that typically resists it.…
Will Wells
July 22, 2019
Will Fox of Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory examined the relationship between high-density plasma and magnetic fields. Credit: PPPLScience

PPPL’s Will Fox Honored for Research on Titan

Will Fox, a research scientist at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) and long-time user of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), has received the 2019 Thomas H. Stix Award for Outstanding Early Career Contributions to Plasma Physics Research from the American Physical Society.…
Will Wells
July 22, 2019
Science

Predicting Material Properties with Quantum Monte Carlo

Written by: Nils Heinonen, Argonne Leadership Computing Facility Recent advances in quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods have the potential to revolutionize computational materials science, a discipline traditionally driven by density functional theory (DFT). While DFT—an approach that uses quantum-mechanical modeling to examine the electronic structure of complex systems—provides convenience to…
Katie Bethea
July 15, 2019