Communications of the ACM
Berkeley Lab Contemplates Stepping Stone to Exascale Supercomputer
Cray supplied the last two big NERSC systems to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and would appear to be the odds on favorite to supply NERSC-8 as well.
Credit: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) at Berkeley Lab recently began installing Edison, a Cray supercomputer that will exceed two peak petaflops when it is fully deployed. NERSC also is planning a next-generation system, code named NERSC-8, which could be the center's last major deployment before reaching the exascale stage. The center's plan is for NERSC-8 to start operations before the end of 2015.
In addition, NERSC is planning another system, known as Trinity, a supercomputer for the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Sandia National Laboratory (SNL), which also is slated for deployment in 2015. Since both systems will be installed in the 2015-2016 time frame and are intended to run for four to six years, they represent the pre-cursor to exascale systems, which are scheduled to be developed by 2020.
NERSC-8's goal is to deliver a system that performs 10 to 30 times faster than Hopper, the NERSC-6 model. Trinity's performance is expected to be 20 to 60 times faster than Cielo, the fastest LANL/SNL system to date. The biggest challenge will be to provide a system that can run the 600 science applications currently in use on Berkeley's hardware.
From HPC Wire
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