Intel and the Department of Energy are building America's first exascale supercomputer, a computer capable of a quintillion calculations per second
Rosalie Chan March 18, 2019
Intel and the US Department of Energy announced Monday
that they would build Aurora, described as the US's first exascale
supercomputer.
An exascale supercomputer, capable of processing 1
quintillion (1,000,000,000,000,000,000) calculations per second, could be used
for testing military weapons, modeling weather patterns, or doing research on
cancer, cardiac issues, traumatic brain injuries, and suicide prevention.
Intel and the Energy Department said that when Aurora
is completed in
2021, it will be the most powerful supercomputer in
the US and potentially the world, though other countries may also have plans to
build an exascale supercomputer.
Intel said on Monday that it would build the US's most
powerful supercomputer, so fast that it could process 1 quintillion — 1 billion
times 1 billion, or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 — calculations per second.
To put that in perspective: If every person on Earth
did one calculation (say, a math problem involving algebra) per second, it
would take everyone over four years to do all the calculations Aurora could do
in one second.
Intel and the US Department of Energy said Aurora
would be the US's first exascale supercomputer, with a performance of 1
exaflop, when it's completed in 2021.
That kind of number-crunching brawn, the computer's
creators hope, will enable great leaps in everything from cancer research to
renewable-energy development.
Aurora, set to be developed by Intel and its
subcontractor Cray at the Energy Department's Argonne National Laboratory in
Chicago, would far surpass the abilities of supercomputers today. It's likely
to be the most powerful supercomputer in not just the US but the world, though
Rick Stevens, an associate laboratory director at Argonne, said that other
countries might also be working on exascale supercomputers.
The effort marks a "transformational" moment
in the evolution of high-performance computing, Rajeeb Hazra, an Intel
corporate vice president and general manager of its enterprise and government
group, told Business Insider.
What Aurora could do
A computer that powerful is no small thing. Though
Intel didn't unveil the technical details of the system, supercomputers
typically cover thousands of square feet and have thousands of nodes.
When it's finished, this supercomputer should be able
to do space simulations, drug discovery, and more. The government said it
planned to use it to develop applications in science, energy, and defense.
Aurora could also be used by universities and national labs.
For example, it could be used to safely simulate and
test weapons — without actually setting them off or endangering people — or
design better batteries, wind-power systems, or nuclear reactors. It could also
be used to better understand earthquake hazards and model the risks of climate
change.
It could even be used for research on cancer, cardiac
issues, traumatic brain injuries, and suicide prevention, especially among
veterans. The supercomputer is designed to apply large-scale data analytics and
machine learning to understand the risk factors for these kinds of physical and
mental health problems to help prevent them.
Intel, which says it helps power over 460 of the top
500 supercomputers, has worked with the Department of Energy for about two
decades. It said Aurora would be five times as fast as the most powerful
supercomputer, IBM's Summit.
The Department of Energy's contract with Intel and
Cray is worth over $500 million to build Aurora, which Secretary of Energy Rick
Perry authorized in 2017. The department also plans to build additional
exascale supercomputers to start working between 2021 and 2023.
"The biggest challenge is also probably the most
exciting part: to envision and create technologies that have never been created
before," Hazra said.
"Because this machine requires a level of
capability we haven't seen before, the biggest risk is we're inventing
something new — but to us, that's also the most exciting part."
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