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OLCF Workshop Introduces HPC Concepts

The Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) held an Introduction to High-Performance Computing (HPC) workshop June 26–28 at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Using resources at the OLCF, a DOE Office of Science User Facility located at ORNL, researchers can tackle big science problems…
Elizabeth Rosenthal
July 17, 2018
Technology

ORNL’s Summit Supercomputer Named World’s Fastest

OAK RIDGE, Tenn.  – The US Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory is once again officially home to the fastest supercomputer in the world, according to the TOP500 List, a semiannual ranking of the world’s fastest computing systems. The recently launched Summit supercomputer was announced as No. 1 today…
Jonathan Hines
June 25, 2018
particle physics, nuclear physics, supercomputingScience

With Supercomputing Power and an Unconventional Strategy, Scientists Solve a Next-Generation Physics Problem

Using the Titan supercomputer at the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF), a team of researchers has calculated a fundamental property of protons and neutrons, known as the nucleon axial coupling, with groundbreaking precision. Led by André Walker-Loud of the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the…
Katie Elyce Jones
May 30, 2018
Matt Ezell works with the HPC systems team and other OLCF groups to identify bugs and technical issues with Summit’s software before the machine comes online.People

Faces of Summit: Leading a Systems Expedition

Matt Ezell works with the HPC systems team and other OLCF groups to identify bugs and technical issues with Summit’s software before the machine comes online. The Faces of Summit series shares stories of the people behind America’s top supercomputer for open science, the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s Summit.…
Rachel McDowell
May 29, 2018
The 2018 OLCF User Meeting was attended by 117 users and staff members. The annual event allows users to share their experiences with the OLCF’s resources and gives them an opportunity to learn about new tools and services.People

OLCF Hosts 14th Annual User Meeting amid Summit Buzz

The OLCF introduced plans for its future exascale system, Frontier, at the 2018 OLCF User Meeting. Last week 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), held its annual user meeting—an event…
Rachel McDowell
May 29, 2018
ORNL team reaches into atoms’ depths to look at particle interactions driving nuclear stabilityScience

Nuclear Physicists Wield HPC to Uncover Magic Isotopes

Where do elements come from? How does the strong force bind subatomic particles into nuclei? What can scientists understand from nuclei with unusual proton–neutron ratios? Nuclear physicists at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) are seeking answers to questions like these. One element is of…
Rachel McDowell
May 1, 2018
Science

A Problem with Polymer Theory

Researchers at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, a US Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility located at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), used high-performance computing to verify experiments that challenge a 40-year-old theory in soft-matter physics. The findings, published in ACS Macro Letters, add to…
Jonathan Hines
April 16, 2018
Science

Titan Powers Data Dive into Tropical Soil Microbes

Using high-performance computing, an Oak Ridge National Laboratory-led research team analyzed how the availability of phosphorous affects microbes’ foraging strategies in a tropical ecosystem. At right, microbial genes encode the production of phytase enzymes that break apart phytate molecules, releasing much needed phosphate for the microbes’ survival. Every life-form depends…
Jonathan Hines
February 27, 2018
Science

GM Revs up Diesel Combustion Modeling on Titan Supercomputer

https://vimeo.com/260126956 Most car owners in the United States do not think twice about passing over the diesel pump at the gas station. Instead, diesel fuel mostly powers our shipping trucks, boats, buses, and generators—and that is because diesel engines are about 10 percent more fuel-efficient than gasoline, saving companies money…
Katie Elyce Jones
February 7, 2018
Technology

Optimizing Miniapps for Better Portability

Minisweep performs a “sweep” computation across a grid (pictured)—representative of a 3D volume in space—to calculate the positions, energies, and flows of neutrons in a nuclear reactor. The yellow cube marks the beginning location of the sweep. The green cubes are dependent upon information from the yellow cube, the blue…
Rachel McDowell
January 17, 2018
Science

A Shortcut to Modeling Sickle Cell Disease

https://vimeo.com/251490525 Each year, 500,000 babies are born with a genetic disorder called sickle cell disease, a chronic illness that causes patients’ red blood cells to be abnormally shaped and to stick to the walls of blood vessels. The disorder can cause blockages, debilitating pain, and even damage to the body’s…
Jonathan Hines
January 16, 2018
Science

Scaling Deep Learning for Science

Deep neural networks—a form of artificial intelligence—have demonstrated mastery of tasks once thought uniquely human. Their triumphs have ranged from identifying animals in images, to recognizing human speech, to winning complex strategy games, among other successes. Now, researchers are eager to apply this computational technique—commonly referred to as deep learning—to…
Jonathan Hines
November 28, 2017
People

Teams Gear up for Summit at Fourth Annual GPU Hackathon

At the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility’s (OLCF’s) fourth annual GPU Hackathon, event programmers again successfully adapted their applications for GPU architectures. The 5-day event at the Hilton in Knoxville, Tennessee, took place the week of October 9 during the installation of the OLCF’s next flagship supercomputer, Summit. The event drew…
Rachel McDowell
November 28, 2017
Science

Decades-Long Physics Mystery Elucidated with Titan

The same fusion reactions that power the sun also occur inside a tokamak, a device that uses magnetic fields to confine and control plasmas of 100-plus million degrees. Under extreme temperatures and pressure, hydrogen atoms can fuse together, creating new helium atoms and simultaneously releasing energy. Fusion could be a…
Rachel McDowell
October 17, 2017
Industry

OLCF Helps GE Deliver Next-Generation Gas Turbines

In 2017, US-based General Electric (GE) delivered its newest heavy-duty gas turbine, the 7HA.02, to two power plants in Texas. The installations marked a milestone in natural gas–derived electricity generation, setting new marks in efficiency and emissions for utility-scale turbomachinery. A key ingredient in GE’s successful recipe for this breakthrough…
Jonathan Hines
October 17, 2017
Science

Sodium Shakedown in Dopamine Research

The chemical neurotransmitter dopamine is critical to sending and receiving signals in the nervous system linked to motor movements, learning, and habit formation, which is why many therapies for drug addiction and diseases related to the aging brain, such as Parkinson’s disease, target dopamine uptake. Central to uptake is the…
Katie Elyce Jones
September 19, 2017