Singapore's main science and technology university, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), receives a significant boost in its research efforts with the installation of a green supercomputer at its new High Performance Computing (HPC) Centre on campus. This achievement is in partnership with Jardine OneSolution (2001) Pte Ltd, IBM (NYSE: IBM) - maker of nearly half of the world's 500 fastest computers, Intel, the world leader in silicon innovation, and Red Hat, the world's leading open source solutions provider.
NTU's HPC Centre, expected to be operational in October 2009, will be based on the first IBM System x iDataplex cluster in ASEAN and the largest in Asia-Pacific. It is powered by the new Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series that automatically adjusts to specified energy usage levels and speed data centre transactions, thus reducing electricity consumption. With its measured computing power (Rmax) of over 28 teraflops (trillion mathematical calculations per second), NTU's HPC system will be the fastest in ASEAN. This HPC Centre's supercomputer is currently placed at No. 267 of the world's most powerful supercomputers, according to the latest TOP500 List. It is also the 24th most energy efficient system on the Green500 list with 266.68 Mflops (millions of floating point operations per second) per watt.
Today, advancement in research in a wide range of scientific fields is increasingly dependent on the generation and analysis of massive data sets and innovations in high performance computing, networking, storage and analytical capabilities. This initiative thus closes a gap in high performance computational capacity in the University, readying it to meet computational complexities encountered in a myriad of multidisciplinary research problems and to create new synergies and strengths in discoveries.
With this HPC system, the impact will be extensive across disciplines, from developing future energy sources, studying global climate change, designing new materials, to understanding biological systems and physics of complex socio-economic systems, among others. More can also be achieved in research such as in the modelling of volcanic activities, to understanding the earth's tectonic movements, research in the study of water treatment process, as well as the simulation of flight dynamics.
"With growing HPC adoption worldwide, we are excited that the new facility will put NTU at the forefront of high performance computing. By offering it as a central computing resource to the 2,800 faculty and researchers in the University, we cater to the varied computing needs demanded by the academic disciplines in the Institution and facilitate advancement of our many strategic research initiatives," said Professor Bertil Andersson, Provost, NTU.
"IBM is actively engaged with universities throughout the world, working to put the latest technology into the hands of leading researchers. We are delighted to partner with NTU on such a bold and technologically advanced HPC System," said Teresa Lim, Managing Director, IBM Singapore. "Designed to meet varying demands across a number of academic disciplines, the IBM system will enable NTU's faculty and researchers to work on larger, more complex problems and help find the answers to some of life's most perplexing problems."
"The enterprise-class Intel® Xeon® processor 5500 series can play a key role in scientific discoveries by researchers who use supercomputers as their foundation for research, all whilst delivering great energy efficiency for reduced electricity costs," said Patrick Liew, Singapore Country Manager, Intel Technology Asia. "This HPC cluster by NTU will create opportunities to solve the world's most complex challenges and push the limits of science and technology."
The IBM System x iDataplex cluster solution uses Quad Data Rate (QDR) InfiniBand as the Node Interconnect as well as the IBM System Storage DCS9900 Storage System. The Voltaire Infiniband QDR interconnect Director-class switches in the HPC system configuration makes NTU the first in Asia to utilise a leading-edge technology that couples input ports and output ports to realise significantly improved performance. In addition, the IBM System Storage DCS9900, a high performance storage system designed for the storage needs of highly scalable, data streaming applications, is arguably one of the fastest and densest storage solutions available today. IBM's full suite of HPC software will also be used to manage the full cluster, including IBM's General Parallel File System (GPFS), a workhorse file system that powers many of the world's largest supercomputer sites.
Performance in the NTU's HPC system is further boosted by the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series which offers energy-efficiency features and more than three times the memory bandwidth than the dual-socket architecture. This translates to significant and immediate gains in application performance by up to three times without the need for further investment in software development or increased power and cooling support for the data centre.
The NTU HPC system will run on the industry's leading enterprise open source operating environment, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).
"Today, most of the world's HPC centres already run on RHEL and has proven to offer true mission-critical stability, operational flexibility, world-class performance, security, and stability," said Patrick Lim, ASEAN General Manager, Red Hat Asia Pacific. "Based on Top 500 supercomputer sites, Linux commands an almost ninety percent share for operating systems for High Performance Computing."
Besides performance, with power and cooling the number one issue facing many HPC sites, the system at NTU will be one of the greenest HPC systems in the region. NTU's HPC system maximises performance with a unique water-cooled technology - IBM's Rear Door Heat eXchanger for the iDataplex Rack. This liquid-cooled panel on the back of the unit will eliminate the need for computer-room air conditioners, allowing for room-temperature operation. The IBM Rear Door Heat eXchanger for iDataplex will also allow NTU to have a high-density data centre environment that will not increase cooling demands - and may actually lower them.
Media contact:
Hisham Hambari
Assistant Director, Corporate Communications Office
Nanyang Technological University
Tel: 6790 6447;
Mobile: 9616 4844;
E-mail: mhisham@ntu.edu.sg
Javan Ng
Brand and Communications Manager,
IBM Singapore Pte Ltd
Tel: 6418 1525;
Mobile: 8138 2676;
E-mail: ngkhj@sg.ibm.com
About Nanyang Technological University
Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is a research-intensive university ranked among the world's top 100 universities. The Yunnan Garden campus, NTU's main campus, is located in the south-western part of Singapore and will be the Youth Olympic Village of the inaugural Youth Olympic Games in 2010. The NTU@one-north campus, home to educational and alumni clubhouse facilities, is located near Singapore's biomedical research hub, Biopolis; and the new engineering and physical sciences hub, Fusionopolis.
NTU has four colleges, namely:
- The Nanyang Business School (the College of Business), the first and only Singapore business school to be ranked in the top 25 of the Financial Times Global MBA 2008 rankings
- The College of Engineering, with six schools focused on technology and innovation and a research output among the top four in the world
- The College of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, home to Singapore's first professional art school offering degree courses in art, design and interactive digital media; the Humanities and Social Sciences School; and the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, a top journalism and media school in Asia
- The College of Science is home to award-winning faculty, world-class laboratories, and Olympiad medal winners.
The S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, one of three autonomous institutes of NTU, is a world authority on strategic studies and security research. NTU is also home to the internationally-acclaimed National Institute of Education, Singapore's only teacher-training institute. The Earth Observatory of Singapore, established in 2009 with $150 million in state funding, is dedicated to hazards-related earth science.
As Singapore's main science and technology university, NTU makes significant contributions to the nation's renewed drive for research and innovation spearheaded by the Singapore National Research Foundation (NRF). NTU's strengths in biomedical sciences, environmental and water technologies, and interactive and digital media mirror the NRF's research focus. Impressed by the vibrant entrepreneurship environment at NTU, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, widely known as 'The Foundation of Entrepreneurship', has chosen NTU to be the first Kauffman campus outside the United States of America.
NTU has a strong and broad international reach covering academic and research partnerships with top institutions in the US, Europe and Asia, such as MIT, Stanford University, Cornell University, Caltech, University of Washington, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Carnegie Mellon University; Cambridge University, Imperial College and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology; and Peking University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Waseda University, and Indian Institute of Technology.
For more information, visit www.ntu.edu.sg (link resides outside of ibm.com)