MRI-R2: Acquisition of a Heterogeneous Supercomputing Instrument for Transformative Interdisciplinary Research

MRI-R2：获取用于变革性跨学科研究的异构超级计算仪器

• 批准号: 0960081
• 负责人: Wuchun Feng
• 金额: $ 199.25万
• 依托单位: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-07-01 至 2013-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0960081&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: MRI; R2; Acquisition; Heterogeneous; Supercomputing

"This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009(Public Law 111-5)."Proposal #: 09-60081PI(s): Feng, Wuchun Hilu; Khidir W.; King, Scott D.Institution: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Title: MRI-R2/Acq:Heterogeneous Supercomputing Instrument for Transformative Interdisciplinary ResearchProject Proposed :This project, acquiring a versatile heterogeneous supercomputing instrument, called HokieSpeed, in which each compute node consists of CPUs (central processing units) and GPUs (graphics processing units), aims to empower faculty, students, and staff across disciplines to tackle problems previously viewed as intractable or that required heroic efforts and significant domain expertise to solve. The instrument is expected to catalyze new approaches for conducting research via synergistic amalgamation of heterogeneous supercomputing and cyber-enabled tools that enhance ease of use. In particular, it should allow end users to:- Make commonplace the ability to perform in-situ visualization for rapid visual information synthesis and analysis, and- Control their level of immersion in the discovery process from being immersed (a la 'human in the loop' intuitively making real-time decisions via a large-scale gigapixel display), to observing the instrument automatically collect, organize, and analyze data of visual analytics.Recent trends have exposed the CPU as a 'jack of all computing trades, master of none,' thus giving rise to heterogeneous computing instruments with multiple types of brains (e.g., CPUs and GPUs). Though conventional wisdom believed in 2007 that missing genes in 699 microbial genomes was computationally infeasible, the PI led a team of more than twenty interdisciplinary researchers from eight institutions around the world and developed software cybertool instruments to integrate a set of distributed supercomputing with more that twelve thousand CPUs to complete the task in ten weeks. Coupled with the existing cybertools and those available from NVIDIA the instrument should enable completion of the task in a day with only two researchers. HokieSpeed will have 8,192 CPU cores and at least 61,440 GPU cores in 40 square feet and deliver 35 times better peak performance, 70 times better power efficiency, and 14 times better space efficiency than the current system at the institution (circa 2003) while offering versatility by enabling discovery through a large-scale gigapixel display and appropriately varying degrees of interaction between human and machine. Creating new forms of social research, and 'what if' scenarios for evaluation and promising to deliver research advances across multiple disciplines, the results will be generated often in real time allowing immediate in-situ visualization on a gigapixel display.Broader Impacts: Reaching a broad community, the instrument is expected to herald a new age in multi-purpose and interdisciplinary computing instrumentation creating a computational ecosystem that simplifies access and use of the instrument to the masses. Students, including females and underrepresented minorities, will learn about energy-efficient computing, and visualization and interaction at large scale. Among others, the project will also utilize programs that specifically service broader impacts: MAOP (Multicultural/Minority Academic Opportunities Program), CTech2 (Computers and Technology at VaTech), and CRA-W's CREU (Collaborative Research Experience for Undergraduates). Additionally, it will extend an experimental GPU course and offer a workshop version for on-line instruction. Other activities include K-12 outreach, and delivery by CREU of information technology (IT) to rural and economically disadvantaged areas via virtual computing and the VaTech-STEM K-12 Outreach Initiative.

“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。“提案编号：09- 60081 PI（s）：Feng，Wuchun Hilu; Khidir W.;机构：弗吉尼亚理工学院和州立大学 MRI-R2/Acq：用于变革性跨学科研究的异构超级计算仪器项目建议：该项目收购了一种多功能的异构超级计算仪器，称为HokieSpeed，其中每个计算节点由CPU（中央处理器）和GPU（图形处理器）组成，旨在使教师，学生和跨学科的工作人员能够解决以前被视为棘手的问题，或者需要英勇的努力和重要的领域专业知识来解决。该工具有望通过异构超级计算和网络工具的协同融合促进新的研究方法，提高易用性。特别地，它应该允许终端用户：-使执行用于快速视觉信息合成和分析的原位可视化的能力变得司空见惯，以及-控制他们在发现过程中的沉浸程度，从沉浸（一种“人在回路中”，通过大规模千兆像素显示器直观地做出实时决策）到观察仪器自动收集、组织和分析视觉分析的数据。最近的趋势已经将CPU暴露为“所有计算行业的千斤顶，没有大师”，从而产生具有多种类型的大脑的异构计算仪器（例如，CPU和GPU）。尽管在2007年，传统观点认为699个微生物基因组中缺失的基因在计算上是不可行的，但PI领导了一个由来自世界各地8个机构的20多名跨学科研究人员组成的团队，开发了软件cybertool仪器，将一套分布式超级计算与超过12000个CPU集成在一起，在10周内完成了任务。再加上现有的网络工具和NVIDIA提供的工具，该仪器应该能够在一天内仅由两名研究人员完成任务。HokieSpeed将在40平方英尺的空间内拥有8，192个CPU核心和至少61，440个GPU核心，并提供35倍的峰值性能，70倍的能效，空间利用率比该机构目前的系统高出14倍（大约2003年），同时通过大规模的缩放千兆像素显示器和适当地改变人机之间的交互程度。创建新形式的社会研究，以及“假设”的评估场景，并承诺提供跨多个学科的研究进展，结果将经常在真实的时间内生成，允许在千兆像素显示器上即时进行现场可视化。到达一个广泛的社区，该文书预计将预示着一个新的时代，目的和跨学科的计算仪器，创造了一个计算生态系统，简化了大众对仪器的访问和使用。学生，包括女性和代表性不足的少数民族，将学习节能计算，可视化和大规模互动。除其他外，该项目还将利用专门服务于更广泛影响的计划：MAOP（多元文化/少数民族学术机会计划），CTech 2（VaTech的计算机和技术）和CRA-W的CREU（本科生合作研究经验）。此外，它还将扩展实验性GPU课程，并提供在线教学的研讨会版本。其他活动包括K-12外联，以及CREU通过虚拟计算和VaTech-STEM K-12外联倡议向农村和经济落后地区提供信息技术。