Researchers get supercomputer time from DOE
Sixty-six scientific projects won access to the Energy Department’s
supercomputers as part of an annual competition, DOE announced Dec. 18.
The projects were competitively selected for their technical readiness
and scientific merit. The projects focus on areas including
astrophysics, climate change, new materials, energy production and
biology, the department said.
University researchers, DOE scientists, commercial companies and others won the awards, department officials said.
DOE’s
Office of Science is coordinating the program to provide access to
supercomputers at the department's national laboratories. DOE’s
Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment
(INCITE) program will allocate the supercomputing and data storage
resources, the department said.
The selection process included
a peer review of each proposal for scientific merit and computational
readiness, DOE said, adding that nearly 900 million processor hours
will be awarded to 25 new projects and 41 renewal projects.
DOE
increased the size of its supercomputing systems over the last year,
agency officials said. The 2009 INCITE allocations awarded a total of
889 million processor hours — more than three times the amount
allocated in 2008.
One million hours equals 10,000 processors
running for 100 hours, or just over four days. Running a 1 million-hour
project on a dual-processor desktop computer would take more than 57
years, according to DOE officials.
About the Author
Doug Beizer is a staff writer for Federal Computer Week.