MRI-R2: Acquisition of a GPU-accelerated High-Performance Computing Cluster

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。研究分子在蛋白质和聚合物中的相互作用方式，或者恒星在非常密集的星团中如何动态相互作用，需要非常强大和非常快的计算机。由于庞大的商业市场，某些类型的计算机处理器（称为图形处理单元（gpu））的功能一直在迅速扩展。它们现在比大多数计算机核心的传统中央处理器（cpu）更快、更便宜。德雷塞尔大学（Drexel University）的斯蒂芬·麦克米兰（Stephen McMillan）博士和他的同事们提议，使用这些快速、高效、价格合理的cpu，来加快对大量恒星或分子的行为进行建模所需的非常复杂和漫长的计算。美国国家科学基金会的主要研究仪器项目通过天文科学部资助麦克米兰博士的工作。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Studying the way molecules interact in proteins and polymers, or how stars interact dynamically in very dense clusters, requires very powerful and very fast computers. The capabilities of certain kinds of computer processors, called Graphical Processing Units (GPUs) have been expanding rapidly due to a large commercial market. They are now faster, and cheaper, than conventional Central Processing Units (CPUs) at the heart of most computers. Dr. Stephen McMillan and his colleagues at Drexel University are proposing to use these fast, efficient, and affordable CPUs to speed up the very complicated and lengthy computations needed in to model the behavior of large collections of stars or molecules. NSF's Major Research Instrumentation program is funding Dr. McMillan's work through its Division of Astronomical Sciences.