National Center for Computational Sciences

OAK RIDGE — The Jaguar, second-fastest computer in the world according to a top 500 list released in late June, will get new processors by year’s end — more than doubling its peak capability to 250 trillion calculations per second.

Despite the upgrade, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory machine (a Cray XT4) will likely lose places on the ratings list that’s compiled semi-annually. And, within two years, ORNL should have another computer that makes the Jaguar seem slow by comparison.

That’s how fast the computing landscape is changing.

The Jaguar’s international ranking doesn’t really matter to Thomas Zacharia, the lab’s computer chief. It’s all about the science, he said.

“It’s nice to have a machine at that scale, but if you simply focus on what the position is on the top 500, then you’re not doing right by the science,” Zacharia said. “I think when you see the science that is being produced with this machine, then you feel good.”

The Jaguar is used for federally funded studies on climate change, biology, advanced materials and nuclear fusion. Time on the powerful supercomputer also is made available for select projects in private industry, and even Hollywood has come calling.

DreamWorks Animation has used Jaguar to run algorithms associated with “ray-tracing” technology. The ability to track light as it interacts with a surface is important to filmmaking and other optical imaging.

Zacharia said the DreamWorks project at ORNL has been a huge success. “They’ve already incorporated it into production activities,” he said.

The supercomputer also is providing simulations of ultra-hot plasma that may some day fuel fusion-energy reactors, Zacharia said. The information gained from the ORNL computer models will contribute to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor that’s being built in France, he said.

Jaguar is just one member of the stable of computers housed in ORNL’s National Center for Computational Sciences.

The lab recently purchased and installed a new IBM Blue Gene/P supercomputer, which is still undergoing tests.

“We expect to get science out of it in the next few weeks,” Zacharia said.

The IBM computer has a peak capability of 27 teraflops — or 27 trillion calculations per second — and is housed in two cabinets, the lab official said. “So it’s not a huge machine,” he said.

The computer’s architecture, however, is terrific for certain types of research, including material studies that support the lab’s nanoscience projects, Zacharia said. He also praised the emerging partnership with IBM, saying it’s important for the research lab to have relationships with all the major computer vendors.

The star of the show is still the Jaguar, which started out as a 25-teraflop machine and later expanded to 50 teraflops and then 119. It will top out at 250 teraflops with the upgrade planned for December.

Even though the Jaguar could be further expanded, ORNL is collaborating with Cray on a supercomputer of a new design that will have a peak performance of one petaflop — a thousand trillion calculations per second. That machine, code-named Baker, is still under development and should arrive here sometime in 2009.

The Oak Ridge lab, as part of its partnership with the University of Tennessee, will become home to another petascale machine to be funded by the National Science Foundation. Zacharia, who holds a faculty position at UT as well as his leadership role at ORNL, headed the university’s proposal team.

The NSF announced the five-year, $65 million grant computer award in August, but negotiations have not been completed, Zacharia said. He said he hoped to be able to talk more about that project in a few weeks.

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By: Frank Munger
Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329.

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