Blue Waters
Encyclopedia
Blue Waters is the name of a petascale
supercomputer
to be deployed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
(NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
. On August 8, 2007, the National Science Board
approved a resolution which authorized the National Science Foundation
to fund "the acquisition and deployment of the world's most powerful leadership-class supercomputer." The NSF is awarding $208 million over the next four and a half years for the Blue Waters project.
On August 8, 2011, NCSA announced that IBM
had terminated its contract to provide hardware for the project, and would refund payments to date. Cray Inc. has won a $188 million contract with the University of Illinois to build the supercomputer for the Blue Waters project; the supercomputer will be installed in phases during the first nine months of 2012.
, or one quadrillion
floating point
operations per second.
at the corner of Oak Street and St. Mary's Road. This new facility will house Blue Waters and other NCSA infrastructure. The 88000 square feet (8,175.5 m²) building has a 20000 square feet (1,858.1 m²) machine room. The facility will be LEED
certified. The facility will make use of the university's campus-wide water cooling system and additional on-site cooling towers that will take advantage of the cold temperatures in Illinois
during the winter months to help reduce energy consumption. The building was designed using complex fluid dynamic models to optimize the cooling system. Energy efficiency at the data center is estimated to be in the 85%-90% range, far superior to the 40% efficiency typically seen in large data centers.
Petascale
In computing, petascale refers to a computer system capable of reaching performance in excess of one petaflop, i.e. one quadrillion floating point operations per second. The standard benchmark tool is LINPACK and Top500.org is the organisation which tracks the fastest supercomputers...
supercomputer
Supercomputer
A supercomputer is a computer at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation.Supercomputers are used for highly calculation-intensive tasks such as problems including quantum physics, weather forecasting, climate research, molecular modeling A supercomputer is a...
to be deployed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is an American state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale cyberinfrastructure that advances science and engineering. NCSA operates as a unit of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign but it provides high-performance...
(NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
. On August 8, 2007, the National Science Board
National Science Board
The National Science Board of the United States is composed of 25 members appointed by the President and confirmed by the United States Senate, representing the broad U.S. science and engineering community. The Board establishes the policies of the National Science Foundation within the framework...
approved a resolution which authorized the National Science Foundation
National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation is a United States government agency that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National Institutes of Health...
to fund "the acquisition and deployment of the world's most powerful leadership-class supercomputer." The NSF is awarding $208 million over the next four and a half years for the Blue Waters project.
On August 8, 2011, NCSA announced that IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
had terminated its contract to provide hardware for the project, and would refund payments to date. Cray Inc. has won a $188 million contract with the University of Illinois to build the supercomputer for the Blue Waters project; the supercomputer will be installed in phases during the first nine months of 2012.
Performance
Blue Waters is expected to run science and engineering code at sustained speeds of at least one petaflopsFlop
- Terms :*Flop, a box office bomb in the entertainment world*Flop, as verb or noun, referring to flophouse, cheap rooms in a transients' hotel*Flop , a poker term describing the first three cards dealt to the board...
, or one quadrillion
Quadrillion
Quadrillion may mean either of the two numbers :* 1,000,000,000,000,000 – for all short scale countries; increasingly common meaning in English language usage* 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 – for all...
floating point
Floating point
In computing, floating point describes a method of representing real numbers in a way that can support a wide range of values. Numbers are, in general, represented approximately to a fixed number of significant digits and scaled using an exponent. The base for the scaling is normally 2, 10 or 16...
operations per second.
Facility
A machine the scale of Blue Waters introduces special concerns with regards to cooling and power. A new National Petascale Computing Facility was built at the University of IllinoisUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
at the corner of Oak Street and St. Mary's Road. This new facility will house Blue Waters and other NCSA infrastructure. The 88000 square feet (8,175.5 m²) building has a 20000 square feet (1,858.1 m²) machine room. The facility will be LEED
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design consists of a suite of rating systems for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings, homes and neighborhoods....
certified. The facility will make use of the university's campus-wide water cooling system and additional on-site cooling towers that will take advantage of the cold temperatures in Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
during the winter months to help reduce energy consumption. The building was designed using complex fluid dynamic models to optimize the cooling system. Energy efficiency at the data center is estimated to be in the 85%-90% range, far superior to the 40% efficiency typically seen in large data centers.