Intel has teamed up with supercomputer builder Cray to build a machine for the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago. The computer, which should be ready in 2018, is expected to reach 180 petaflops.
The US Department of Energy is paying $200 million for the supercomputer Aurora. The machine is part of a project to build several supercomputers in Argonne that are five to seven times as powerful as today’s supercomputers. By comparison, the fastest supercomputer in the top 500 in November 2014 reached 33.9 petaflops. Aurora is the third and final computer within the Coral initiative, which was announced in 2014. A total of $525 million is involved.
The research goals for which Aurora should be used vary. For example, new materials must be sought that yield more powerful and sustainable batteries and better solar panels. Research will also be conducted into better biofuels and the effects of these fuels on organisms, into more effective disease control and into renewable energy sources, such as more efficient and quieter turbines for wind turbines, and better blade designs.
The system will use some Intel High Performance building blocks yet to be developed, such as future generations of 10nm Intel Xeon Phi processors, Intel’s Omni-Path Fabric high-speed connection technology, a new non-volatile memory architecture and a file system that leverages Intel’s Luster. Speculations about how everything should work can be found on The Platform.