NTU unveils green supercomputer at new HPC Centre
ConvergenceAsia staff
22/07/2009

Singapore’s main science and technology university, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), receives a significant boost in its research efforts with the installation of a green supercomputer at its new High Performance Computing (HPC) Centre on campus. The installation of this supercomputer is in collaboration with leading IT giants Jardine OneSolution, IBM, Intel and Red Hat.

NTU’s HPC Centre, expected to be operational in October 2009, will be based on the first IBM System x iDataplex cluster in ASEAN and the largest in Asia Pacific. It is powered by the new Intel Xeon processor 5500 series that automatically adjusts to specified energy usage levels and speed data centre transactions, thus reducing electricity consumption.

With its measured computing power (Rmax) of over 28 teraflops (trillion mathematical calculations per second), NTU’s HPC system will be the fastest in ASEAN. This HPC Centre’s supercomputer is currently placed at No. 267 of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, according to the latest TOP500 List. It is also the 24th most energy efficient system on the Green500 list with 266.68 Mflops (millions of floating point operations per second) per watt.

With this HPC system, the impact will be extensive across disciplines, from developing future energy sources, studying global climate change, designing new materials, to understanding biological systems and physics of complex socio-economic systems, among others. More can also be achieved in research such as in the modelling of volcanic activities, to understanding the earth’s tectonic movements, research in the study of water treatment process, as well as the simulation of flight dynamics.

“With growing HPC adoption worldwide, we are excited that the new facility will put NTU at the forefront of high performance computing,” said Professor Bertil Andersson, Provost, NTU.

“By offering it as a central computing resource to the 2,800 faculty and researchers in the university, we cater to the varied computing needs demanded by the academic disciplines in the Institution and facilitate advancement of our many strategic research initiatives.”

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