Oak Ridge Today

Alexander: Bill raises Office of Science funding to highest-ever, includes UPF, supercomputing, cleanup funding

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U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander

Lamar Alexander

A bill approved by a U.S. Senate subcommittee on Tuesday would give $5.144 billion to the federal agency that oversees work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It’s the highest level of funding ever for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which oversees 10 national labs, including ORNL, federal officials said.

The bill would also provide $430 million for the proposed Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex, which will “continue to keep this project on time and on budget,” according to a press release from the office of U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican.

Alexander’s office also said the legislation would provide funding for:

  • a new mercury treatment plant in Oak Ridge,
  • cleanup of nuclear facilities that are no longer in service,
  • nuclear infrastructure at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and
  • advanced computing, which supports the new Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The bill was unanimously approved on a voice vote by the Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development on Tuesday afternoon. Alexander is chair of that subcommittee, and he said the approval shows that there is bipartisan support for energy research, waterways, and national security. [Read more…]

Alexander: Spending bill includes $440 million for ORNL supercomputer, UPF at Y-12

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U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander

Lamar Alexander

The $1 trillion spending bill passed by the Senate on Saturday night includes more than $400 million in funding to support two Oak Ridge projects—building the world’s fastest supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex, U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander said.

The appropriations legislation avoids a government shutdown and funds most of the government through September. The Senate approved it in a bipartisan 56-40 vote, and it now goes to President Barack Obama, who is expected to sign it into law.

The spending bill cleared the House on Thursday. Liberals sought to strip out a policy provision that eases a Wall Street regulation, and conservatives tried to slow action on immigration. [Read more…]

Chinese supercomputer stays No. 1, Titan at ORNL still No. 2

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Jeff Nichols and Titan at ORNL

Jeff Nichols, associate director for computing and computational sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in front of Titan, which was the world’s top supercomputer in November 2012 but is now ranked No. 2. (Photo courtesy of ORNL)

 

For the fourth consecutive time, Tianhe-2, a supercomputer developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology, has retained its position as the world’s number one system. Meanwhile, Titan at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which was the top supercomputer in November 2012, remains number two.

Tianhe-2 is capable of performing at 33.86 petaflops, or 33.86 quadrillions of calculations per second, on a benchmark test known as Linpack.

The rankings are from the 44th edition of the twice-yearly TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, which was announced Monday in Mannheim, Germany; Berkeley, California; and Knoxville. Tianhe-2 has been in the top spot four consecutive times, and Titan has been number two each time. [Read more…]

Alexander: World’s fastest supercomputer will again be at ORNL

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Summit Supercomputing Press Conference

U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, second from left, a Tennessee Republican, at a Friday morning press conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., with Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, right; Senator Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, center; and representatives Bill Foster and Dan Lipinski. (Submitted photo)

 

U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander

Lamar Alexander

Note: This story was last updated at 11:25 a.m.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory will have the world’s fastest next-generation supercomputer, U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander announced at a Friday morning press conference with U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.

Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, said the new computer will provide five times the performance of Titan, the current system, and support advanced scientific and materials research to improve economic and national security.

The “next-generation hybrid supercomputer” will be called Summit, and it will be delivered in 2017, the senator said.

“Once again the world’s fastest computer will be in the United States, and once again it will be at Oak Ridge,” Alexander said. “Supercomputing has helped Tennessee become a center for advanced manufacturing with the arrival of new companies, including several in the auto industry, creating thousands of good-paying jobs. Tennessee can continue to thrive and create many more good jobs with the use of this new supercomputer.” [Read more…]

Chinese supercomputer still No. 1, Titan at ORNL remains No. 2

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Jeff Nichols and Titan at ORNL

Jeff Nichols, associate director for computing and computational sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in front of Titan, which was the world’s fastest supercomputer in November 2012 but is now ranked No. 2. (Photo courtesy ORNL)

A Chinese supercomputer kept its No. 1 spot, and Titan at Oak Ridge National Laboratory stayed at No. 2 in the latest semiannual ranking of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

The Chinese supercomputer, Tianhe-2, was developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology, and it’s been in the top spot three times in a row on the Top500 List. Tianhe-2 bumped Titan from the top spot in June 2013.

The Chinese supercomputer performed at 33.86 petaflops—that’s 33.86 quadrillion calculations per second—on a test known as the Linpack benchmark, the press release said. Titan performed at 17.59 petaflops.

There was little change among the ranking of the world’s Top 10 supercomputers in the latest edition of the closely watched list, a press release said. The only new entry was at number 10—a 3.14-petaflop Cray XC30 installed at an undisclosed U.S. government site.

The Top500 list was announced Monday morning. The list is compiled by Erich Strohmaier and Horst Simon of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Jack Dongarra of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and Martin Meuer of Prometeus, Germany. [Read more…]

Supercomputers help ORNL researchers identify molecular switch that controls cell behavior

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E. coli Chemoreceptor Switch

Red and blue molecules represent a conformational switch essential to the signaling mechanism of an E. coli chemoreceptor that researchers discovered using computational molecular dynamics simulations. (Image credit: Davi Ortega)

If scientists can control cellular functions such as movement and development, they can cripple cells and pathogens that are causing disease in the body.

Supported by National Institutes of Health grants, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Tennessee, and the UT-ORNL Joint Institute for Computational Sciences discovered a molecular “switch” in a receptor that controls cell behavior using detailed molecular dynamics simulations on a computer called Anton built by D.E. Shaw Research in New York City. To study an even larger signaling complex surrounding the switch, the team is expanding these simulations on Titan—the nation’s most powerful supercomputer, managed by the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at ORNL.

Researchers identified the molecular switch on Anton (which was designed to perform speedy molecular dynamics simulations) by simulating 140,000 atoms that make up the signaling part of the Tsr chemoreceptor that controls motility in E. coli. Like other receptors, Tsr spans the cell membrane, communicating to proteins inside the cell in order to respond to threats or opportunities in the environment. [Read more…]

Chinese supercomputer still No. 1, ORNL’s Titan No. 2

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Titan Supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Titan at Oak Ridge National Laboratory stayed at No. 2 in a Top 500 ranking of the world’s most powerful supercomputers released Monday morning. (Photo courtesy of ORNL)

A Chinese supercomputer kept its top ranking, and Titan at Oak Ridge National Laboratory stayed at No. 2 in a Top 500 ranking of the world’s most powerful supercomputers released Monday morning.

The top two spots were unchanged from the semiannual rankings released five months ago in June, when Tianhe-2, a supercomputer developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology, bumped Titan from the top spot. The ORNL supercomputer had been named No. 1 one year ago.

The rankings released Monday at the SC13 conference in Denver, Colo., said Tianhe-2 is capable of performing 33.86 petaflops. That’s 33.86 quadrillion calculations per second, on what is known as a Linpack benchmark test.

Titan is a Cray XK7 system that achieved 17.59 petaflops. Titan is one of the most energy-efficient systems on the list, consuming a total of 8.21 megawatts and delivering 2.143 gigaflops per watt, a press release said. [Read more…]

Budget cuts cause concern in research community, including at ORNL

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Thom Mason

Thom Mason

The budget deal that Congress approved earlier this month to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling kept in place automatic budget cuts known as sequestration.

But those across-the-board cuts are causing concern in the scientific community, including at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

In August, ORNL Director Thom Mason said the lab had been, up to that point, mostly immune from the cuts because of steps that UT-Battelle, the managing and operating contractor, had already taken to cut costs, including through workforce restructuring, reduced staff and overhead budgets, and benefit changes.

“We’ve just been doing everything we can to prepare for lean budgets,” Mason said. [Read more…]

Chinese supercomputer bumps ORNL’s Titan from No. 1 spot

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Tianhe-2 Lights

Lights on the Chinese Tianhe-2 supercomputer, which has a theoretical peak that is twice as fast as the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy Jack Dongarra)

A Chinese supercomputer has bumped the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory from the No. 1 spot on a semiannual ranking of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

The Tianhe-2, which was developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology, is capable of 33.86 petaflops, or more than 33,000 trillion calculations per second.

Now ranked No. 2, Titan was able to perform 17,000 trillion calculations per second, or 17.59 petaflops, according to the list published in November. [Read more…]

Titan supercomputer at ORNL completes acceptance testing

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Titan Supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

The Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory was ranked as the world’s fastest supercomputer in November 2012. (Photo courtesy of ORNL)

By Leo Williams

Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Titan supercomputer has completed rigorous acceptance testing to ensure the functionality, performance, and stability of the machine, one of the world’s most powerful supercomputing systems for open science.

The U.S. Department of Energy machine, the first to combine different types of processing units to maximize performance at such a large scale, ranked as the fastest supercomputer in the world in the November 2012 list published at http://www.top500.org/. Titan, a Cray XK7 supercomputer, is capable of more than 27,000 trillion calculations each second—or 27 petaflops. [Read more…]

Theoretically twice as fast, Chinese supercomputer could bump Titan from No. 1 spot

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Tianhe-2 Lights

Lights on the Chinese Tianhe-2 supercomputer, which has a theoretical peak that is twice as fast as the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. (Photo courtesy Jack Dongarra)

A new Chinese supercomputer is theoretically twice as fast as the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and it could bump Titan from the No. 1 spot on the Top 500 list that will come out on June 17, one of the co-authors of the list said Wednesday.

Titan, which reached the No. 1 spot on the semiannual Top 500 list in November, has a theoretical peak of 27 petaflops, or roughly 27,000 trillion calculations per second.

The Chinese supercomputer, Tianhe-2, also known as TH-2 or Milkyway-2, has a theoretical peak of 54.9 petaflops. It also has about twice as much memory as the Titan system, said Jack Dongarra, a Top 500 co-author, University of Tennessee faculty member, and distinguished research staff member in ORNL’s Computer Science and Mathematics Division. [Read more…]

Titan repairs complete, ORNL preparing for second round of supercomputer testing

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Jeff Nichols and Titan at ORNL

Jeff Nichols, associate director for computing and computational sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, in front of Titan, the world’s fastest supercomputer. (Photos courtesy of ORNL)

Connectors in the Titan supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have been repaired, and workers are preparing the world’s fastest machine for a second round of acceptance testing, an official said Monday.

That testing could allow the $100 million machine to be put into full production mode by the end of this month or early May, said Jeff Nichols, ORNL associate lab director for computing and computational sciences.

Titan won’t be available to researchers for a short period while the lab re-runs acceptance tests. [Read more…]