Lenovo and Intel provided Flatiron with computing powers for carrying out scientific research

2019: Implementation of Lenovo ThinkSystem SD530 Dense Rack

On October 11, 2019 representatives of Lenovo and Intel told about cooperation in creation of the joint technological solutions accelerating merge of high-performance computing (HPC) and the artificial intelligence (AI). A project objective — to help scientists from Flatiron institute in a different way to solve scientific problems.

As it was reported Flatiron institute, located in New York, is research division of Simons Foundation which main objectives are researches in the field of mathematics and fundamental sciences. With respect thereto Flatiron is necessary HPC infrastructure capable to process a great number of the most different files data — from huge files of the sequence of a genome to 100000 small files in one directory. A local cluster of institute — the central infrastructure of HPC — includes 17000 computing cores of Intel in structure servers Lenovo ThinkSystem SD530 processing workload of HPC and AI. Such combination allows computers to analyze large and heterogeneous data arrays and to model difficult physical processes.

Before emergence of large-scale computing clusters research associates of Flatiron institute were limited in means of achievement of these purposes. They were beyond the scope of practical opportunities of the used equipment in terms of both the speed, and volumes of system researches. Lenovo and Intel acted as partners of Flatiron, aiming to improve and expand considerably possibilities of institute in the field of HPC and artificial intelligence that technological limits stopped being a restraining factor for researches.

For reproduction of cosmological processes, for example, of formation of galaxies and emergence of black holes, hundreds of thousands of computing cores connected with each other are required. Our researchers should spend the most part of time for science, but not on calculations. Our purpose consists in that not the systems based on silicon, and systems based on carbon, i.e. the person were the limiting factor in researches. Ian Fisk, the co-founder of scientific computer center of Flatiron institute told

For October, 2019 researches at Flatiron Institute are conducted by means of the Lenovo ThinkSystem SD530 Dense Rack servers with Lenovo Neptune Thermal Transfer Module (TTM) technology on processors Intel Xeon Platinum 8268 (Intel Xeon Scalable the 2nd generation with Intel Deep Learning Boost technology). Now scientists will be able to execute the research projects requiring a heavy load on computing systems which would be simply impossible earlier.

For example, for last decade with growth of availability of HPC the problem of interpretation of a genome was considerably reduced the price. Earlier researchers could define the sequence from about 2% of data of a genome, and a dream October, 2019 they have an opportunity to see the sequence of a complete genome at once of several thousand families. Such progress can become a key to development of more effective methods of detection of the genes causing diseases or to development of exact medicine.

Due to the uniqueness of computing requirements and limitation of a free space a compact system with air cooling and capacious memory was necessary for Flatiron institute.

Thanks to a supercomputer cluster of HPC from Lenovo at us now in 4-5 times more memories, than at a standard HPC-farm. Reading the file of the sequence of a genome of 200 GB in size within the biological research project or accomplishment of 11000 connections with other nodes in an astrophysical research requires the large volume of memory. Now, when to us the scientist handles an interesting challenge which his equipment does not allow to solve, we can help it. Ian Fisk, the co-founder of scientific computer center of Flatiron institute told

Disruptive researches of Flatiron institute require disruptive technologies. Thanks to our cooperation with Lenovo company, we will be able to provide the conducting developments for the help to Flatiron institute in the solution of global problems of mankind, and among such developments — the accelerators combined in one processor based on AI and HPC. told Trish Damkroger, the vice president and the CEO of Extreme Computing Organization, Intel