The NCSA Supercomputing Coloring Book

Vol. 2

National Center for Supercomputing Applications University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

The University of Illinois National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) operates some of the worlds most powerful supercomputers and develops software and tools to help researchers efficiently use these systems. NCSA and its partners are developing a supercomputer called Blue Waters that will be able to do 1 quadrillion (1,000 trillion or 1 million billion!) calculations every second when running a variety of real science and engineering software, helping researchers make extraordinary leaps in knowledge and discovery.

D  eveloping and deploying powerful, reliable computing, data, and networking resources that help researchers solve the most demanding science and engineering problems in a timely manner. We develop and explore innovative architectures and techniques to achieve extreme-scale science.  Working with research communities to develop tailored software and tools for digital scholarship. R  esearching and developing software, techniques, and tools to improve national cybersecurity and to help law enforcement better respond to cyberattacks. P  roviding insights into complex systems and sharing the thrill of scientific discovery with millions of people through artful visualizations of scientific phenomena. P  reparing the next generation of scientists and engineers to effectively use the growing national cyberinfrastructure.

The National Science Foundation, the state of Illinois, the University of Illinois, industrial partners, and other federal agencies support NCSA.

A supercomputer is a very fast, powerful computer. Unlike your home computer, it doesnt need a monitor, a keyboard, or a mousejust the parts of the computer that can do lots of math very quickly. Scientists and engineers use supercomputers to model many real-world problems. 1

Researchers use supercomputers to simulate the folding and unfolding of proteins in an effort to understand how folding errors can cause diseases.

Scientists use computers to predict how molecules will behave under a variety of conditions. This model shows a silicon nanocrystal; nanocrystals emit light of different colors when hit with infrared or ultraviolet radiation.

Blue Waters deputy project director Bill Kramer and NCSA director Thom Dunning in NCSAs machine room. NCSA provides researchers across the country with supercomputers that perform trillions of calculations every second. When Blue Waters comes online, it will perform quadrillions of calculations every second. 4

The new National Petascale Computing Facility will house the Blue Waters supercomputer, which is a joint project of the University of Illinois, NCSA, IBM, and the Great Lakes Consortium for Petascale Computation, with support from the National Science Foundation. 5

Energy efficiency is an integral part of Blue Waters and the National Petascale Computing Facility. The computer will be water cooled, which means well use 40% less power to keep Blue Waters from overheating. And we have water tanks outside where Mother Nature can chill water for us about 70% of the year. 6

With Blue Waters, atmospheric scientists will try to learn more about why tornadoes form in the hopes of giving people more timely, accurate warnings about these dangerous storms.

Companies use supercomputers to design and refine products, from airplane wings to the spouts on ketchup bottles. Businesses use NCSAs supercomputers to gain a competitive edge.

Computer modeling produces a flood of data that continues to grow as computers become more powerful and researchers can perform more detailed, longer simulations. Thousands of trillions of bytes of data are stored on tape and retrieved by robots at NCSA.

In breakthrough molecular dynamics simulations, University of Illinois researchers modeled an entire organism (the tobacco mosaic virus) at the atomic level. Simulations like these help scientists figure out how viruses replicate and how to try to stop them.

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NCSA works with communities of researchers to develop tools like MAEviz, which provides policymakers with detailed predictions of the structural, economic, and social damage that could result from an earthquake.

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NCSAs computer security experts block malicious intruders and help law enforcement agencies fight cybercrime.

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NCSA transforms dry data into artful animations that have been showcased at the American Museum of Natural History, in an Oscar-nominated IMAX movie, in television documentaries, and at planetariums and theaters around the globe. Many students visit NCSA to see these 3D visualizations. 13

NCSA helps prepare the next generation of researchers. The GEMS (Girls Engaged in Math and Science) program, for example, excites middle-school girls about the possibilities of math, science, and technology careers.

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Math, science, and technology can lead to many interesting careers: designing video games, exploring space, discovering new things through experiments, building safer houses, treating diseases, and more!

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In 1986, NCSAs first supercomputer was a Cray X-MP/24 with a peak speed of 200 megaflops. The Blue Waters system, in contrast, will provide sustained performance of 1 petaflop (1 quadrillion calculations per second). Thats millions of times faster!

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National Center for Supercomputing Applications www.ncsa.illinois.edu

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign www.illinois.edu

Source image credits

Tryptophan cage protein

F3 tornado
Robert Wilhelmson, Matthew Gilmore, University of Illinois; Lou Wicker, NSSL/NOAA; NCSA Advanced Visualization Lab.

Tobacco mosaic virus

Silicon nanocrystal
Zachary Helms, North Carolina State University.

MAEviz
Mid-America Earthquake Center, University of Illinois; NCSA Cyberenvironments and Technologies Group.

learn more about NCSA at

www.ncsa.illinois.edu

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