Lomonosov Supercomputer

The Lomonosov supercomputer was installed at Moscow State University in 2009. As of the beginning of 2013, its peak performance is 1.7 Pflops, and the real performance is about 900 Tflops. With the same power in the edition of the Top 50 of the most powerful computing systems in Russia and the CIS for September 2013, this system takes first place. In the world ranking of the Top 500 for June 2013, Lomonosov ranks 31st.

See also:

• Supercomputers (CIS market)
• Supercomputers

Main technical characteristics

The supercomputer has a hybrid architecture: in addition to computing nodes based on x86 processors, it also uses graphics accelerators. As of the beginning of 2013, the system includes 5,104 x86-based computing nodes and 1,065 graphics computing nodes. In addition, the supercomputer uses 30 computing nodes based on Cell processors from. IBM The RAM supercomputer is 92 TB, and the total disk memory of the computer is 1.75 PB.

The computing part of the Lomonosov supercomputer covers an area of ​ ​ 252 square meters. m Lomonosov's uninterrupted power supply system, the main distribution board and the climatic system occupy premises with an area of ​ ​ 246 square meters. m, 85 square meters. m and 216 square meters. m, respectively. The power consumption of the computer itself is 2.6 MW.

Use

The supercomputer resources of Moscow State University are used primarily for basic scientific research that requires resource-intensive calculations. Among these tasks are large-scale work on global climate change and ocean dynamics, seismic data processing, post-genomic medicine, galaxy formation mechanisms, and others.

One of the most famous tasks that was solved with the help of Lomonosov can be called the launch on it of a model for the development of the socio-economic system of Russia for 50 years to come.

In addition to their own scientific teams, access to the supercomputer is also provided to third-party researchers. For example, specialists of IPM named after M.V. Keldysh RAS used the Lomonosov supercomputer for large-scale modeling of aeroacoustics tasks, under which up to 12,800 cores of the computer system were used.

History

2022: Mishustin allocated 2.4 billion rubles to Moscow State University to study AI using a supercomputer

At the end of March 2022, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed an order to allocate more than 2.4 billion rubles for the study of artificial intelligence. These funds will be used to expand the computing potential of the Lomonosov-1 supercomputer, which operates on the basis of Moscow State University and is used to study AI capabilities.

Allocate in 2022 to the Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Education "Lomonosov Moscow State University" in order to develop computing resources for scientific research in the field of artificial intelligence budget allocations for the provision of subsidies in accordance with paragraph 2 of paragraph 1 of article 781 of the Budget Code of the Russian Federation in the amount of 2424000 thousand rubles from the reserve fund of the Government of the Russian Federation, referring to the procurement of goods, works and services related to the creation of a research hardware and software complex of a special architecture for conducting research in the field of artificial intelligence, - said in a document published on the website of the Cabinet.

Mikhail Mishustin allocated Moscow State University 2.4 billion rubles for the study of AI using a supercomputer

This subsidy was the second tranche of funding for the work. Earlier, the Government of the Russian Federation allocated more than 1.8 billion rubles for these purposes.

Specialists at MV Lomonosov Moscow State University have long been exploring the possibilities of artificial intelligence. On April 1, 2022, scientists reported that analyzing the types of cyber threats and determining their consequences would more effectively protect machine learning systems. For example, the so-called adversarial attacks, which change the behavior of the AI system by affecting individual elements, can give criminals access to the parameters of the model, which will lead to the theft of closed information, the authors of the study noted.^[1]

2014: Decline in position in the Top 500 ranking

On November 18, 2014 media ^[2] about new result of the cluster Lomonosov placed in MSU.

Compared to 2013, Lomonosov went down 16 positions in the Top 500 ranking and took 58 lines with the results of tests 1.7 Pflops and 0.9 Pflops on Linpack, respectively.

2013: Supercomputer "Lomonosov" came out of a coma

After almost three months of failure, the Lomonosov supercomputer was restored, TAdviser was told at the Moscow State University Research Computing Center (Moscow State University RCC) in early October 2013. According to a representative of the center, the commissioning of computer nodes of the system was carried out gradually from the beginning of September, and by the end of the month they became available to users in full.

The entrance to the Lomonosov supercomputer was closed to users in June 2013 due to an accident at an electric substation. At the same time, one of the employees of Moscow State University said that problems arose not only at the electric substation from the university itself, but also at the connected substation from Mosenergo, which provides supercomputers of Moscow State University with electricity.

"One burned down in May during an account of large tasks, the second in June, when a summer school on parallel computing was held and there was a heat in Moscow," says an employee of Moscow State University.

Interruptions also arose with the power supply of the second largest supercomputer of Moscow State University - Chebyshev, but in mid-July, the RCC of Moscow State University reported the restoration of about half of its computing nodes.

It was also reported that the Lomonosov service part operates at a functioning electrical substation, to which users were allowed access so that they could copy the necessary data from the file system if necessary. The expected deadlines for eliminating the consequences of the accident at the RCC of Moscow State University were difficult to name, noting that these are "technologically very difficult works."

In August, users dissatisfied with the long inaccessibility of Lomonosov organized a collection of signatures to petition the rector of the Moscow State University of Economics, Sadovnichy, with a request to take urgent measures to restore the functionality of the supercomputer complex.

"The scientific work of hundreds of scientists has actually completely stood up - as if people were simply denied access to the laboratory! Many students and graduate students found themselves in a hopeless situation: in order to prepare diplomas and PhD papers, they need to carry out calculations!, "The petition says and it is noted that today most of the theoretical works in physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and computer science and other sciences require detailed computer calculations

It is worth noting that power outages in the supercomputer complex, due to which his work was disrupted, however, for a much shorter period, were observed earlier. For example, in November 2012. Then at the RCC Moscow State University they were associated with "technical problems in the power system of Moscow."

2010-2012: Modernization

At the time of installation in 2009, the declared peak power of the supercomputer was 414 Tflops. At the end of 2010, it was increased to 510 Tflops, and in June 2011 it was announced that the upgrade of the supercomputer to 1.3 Pflops was completed. In 2012, a project was completed to increase system performance to 1.7 Pflops.

Notes