The Atos supercomputer to help unlock the secrets of the universe

Atos supercomputer for help unlock secrets of Universe

Paris, France), London, (UK) June 1 2021 – Atos today announced that it has been awarded a contract from the University of Edinburgh for the delivery of its most efficient supercomputer, the BullSequana XH2000, the most energy efficient high-performance computing system on the market. It is the largest dedicated GPU computing system deployed at a customer site in the UK.

The new system will be the Extreme Scaling service of the UK’s DiRAC HPC installation. State-of-the-art platform will enable scientists in the STFC theoretical community to advance cutting-edge research in particle physics, among others, using NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) and AMD processors .

It represents a major increase in the computational capacity of DiRAC, greatly increasing the power of the Extreme Scaling service. DiRAC is a distributed facility with high performance computing resources hosted by the universities of Edinburgh, Cambridge, Durham and Leicester. These systems support basic research in particle physics, astrophysics, nuclear physics and cosmology.

The deal is part of a £ 20million investment by the UK’s World Class Research and Innovation Laboratories (UKRI) program, through the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), to finance an upgrade of the DiRAC installation. The investment provides new systems that are up to four times more powerful than existing DiRAC machines, providing computational capacity that can also be used to solve immediate and emerging issues such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The upgraded DiRAC-3 installation will also be much more energy efficient than previous generations.

The new BullSequana XH2000 will be able to simultaneously manage converged workloads (HPC simulation, Artificial Intelligence, Deep Learning) on ​​a single system, and will thus allow DiRAC to go beyond the limits of traditional computer simulation and explore new applications. and innovations. With cutting-edge network standards and the latest processing components, it delivers extreme power, speed and precision. It consumes less power than current systems as it is 100% water cooled using Atos patented DLC (Direct Liquid Cooling) solution, which minimizes overall power consumption by using hot water up to 40 ° C.

Agnes Boudot, Senior Vice President, Head of HPC & Quantum at Atos, mentionned, “We are happy to be partnership with the University of Edinburgh and the DiRAC community to provide a high performance computing platform to support their world-class science program. Our BullSequana XH2000 supercomputer will use both processors and GPUs and has been configured to meet the Extreme Scaling requirements of their scientists. This agreement continues to demonstrate our strategic commitment to design and build powerful and innovative supercomputers while fast approach of exascale time.“

Professor Mark Wilkinson, Professor of Astrophysics at University of Leicester and director of DiRAC Establishment, mentionned, “It’s fantastic that Atos succeeded in DiRAC–3 purchases in Edinburgh and will become a value partner of DiRAC community. In addition to offering a high performance solution, we are discussing with Atos the additional value they will bring in terms of collaboration and opportunities with the industry. to improve the training of our students at prepare them for careers in both academia and industry.“

Professor Luigi Del Debbio, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Edinburgh and Project manager for DiRAC-3 procurement in Edinburgh, mentionned, “We are delighted that the delivery of this state of the art high-performance computing system To allow our sciencetific community in the fields of particle physics, astrono my, cosmology and nuclear physicss at pursue cutting-edge research on a wide range of topics. Atos‘ equipment and expertise will bolster our range of HPC systems at update DiRAC-3 installation, strengthen our research activity and proof education and training of our students. ”

As part of the ongoing partnership activities, Atos will also help sponsor a student’s PhD, support a Hackathon and organize a series of best practice training workshops for scientists.

Atos is committed to supporting closer collaboration between academia and industry through the power of high-performance computing and deep learning. In the UK, the company works in partnership with centers of excellence such as the Hartree Center of the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), the Wellcome Genome Campus, the JADE department of the University of Oxford and the Pirbright Institute. , among others.

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About Atos

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with 105,000 employees and annual revenue of over 11 billion euros. European leader in cybersecurity, cloud and high performance computing, the group offers tailor-made end-to-end solutions for all industries in 71 countries. A pioneer in decarbonisation services and products, Atos is committed to secure and decarbonised digital for its customers. Atos operates under the Atos and Atos brands | Syntel. Atos is an SE (Societas Europaea), listed on the CAC40 Paris stock market index.

Atos’ goal is to help shape the future of the information space. Its expertise and services support the development of knowledge, education and research in a multicultural approach and contribute to the development of scientific and technological excellence. All over the world, the Group enables its customers and employees, as well as members of companies in the broad sense, to live, work and develop in a sustainable manner, in a secure information space.

About DiRAC

DiRAC stands for Distributed Research Using Advanced Computing. The DiRAC high-performance computing facility provides state-of-the-art supercomputing resources to UK researchers working on cutting-edge scientific calculations in a wide range of fields, including particle physics, astrophysics, cosmology and nuclear physics. It includes supercomputers from Cambridge, Durham, Leicester and Edinburgh, each designed to support specific types of calculations. DiRAC also provides access to a team of engineers who are experts in research software to help researchers make the best use of available computer resources. For more details see: https://dirac.ac.uk/.

Press contacts:

United Kingdom and I: Helena Shadbolt [email protected] +44 (0) 20 3128 8799, Nick Collins [email protected] +44 (0) 20 3128 8897

Global: Laura Fau | [email protected] | +33 6 73 64 04 18 | @laurajanefau

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