The United States Department of Defense (DoD) has deployed the SGI ICE X high-performance computing (HPC) system for its supercomputer Spirit, making it the 14th fastest supercomputer in the world according to the Top500.
The SGI ICE X system has been deployed as part of the DoD’s high-performance computing modernisation program (HPCMP), which provides compute resources for the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) DoD Supercomputing Research Center (DSRC).
SGI ICE X system Spirit is named after the B2 Stealth bomber and is enabling Gary Kedziora, an HPCMP PETTT Computational Materials Scientist to implement algorithms that perform quantum mechanical simulations with computational time that scales linearly with respect to the number of atoms.
'Spirit is significantly faster than our previously available platform for running these linear-scaling calculations, which are becoming viable for production level work,' said Kedziora. 'This enables DoD computational material scientists to model larger and more complex materials using predictive quantum mechanical methods on thousands of SGI ICE X processor cores.'
'Our customers are already flocking to the fastest system in the Department of Defense, finding that their applications are performing significantly better on the new system,' said Jeff Graham, director of the AFRL DSRC.
'SGI has delivered a system that is exceeding their standard benchmark performance on DoD applications by an average of over 27 per cent, which translates into higher productivity for scientists and engineers across the DoD.'
