NEWS IN BRIEF
11
Supermicro and Goethe University Frankfurt delivers
computing solution for COVID and physics research
Super Micro Computer, Inc. has announced that the Center for Scientific
Computing (CSC) has chosen Supermicro’s 4U 8 GPU A+ server with PCI-E
Gen 4 and 200Gb/s networking (AS -4124GS-TNR) as the foundation for
their next generation of High-Performance Computing (HPC) servers. CSC
is an initiative of the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, and Johann
Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main.
The Supermicro AS-4124GS-TNR is an advanced server that incorporates
AMD EPYC processors that have been designed to eliminate bottlenecks
in the transfer of data between main host memory and the GPUs. When
equipped with Radeon Instinct MI50 GPU accelerators, this server enables
researchers to conduct their investigations exceptionally fast.
“Supermicro is excited to once again partner with the leading HPC
centre at Goethe University Frankfurt to deliver our powerful new A+
Server with exceptional CPU, GPU, and networking performance,” said Vik
Malyala, senior vice president, Supermicro. “We continue to innovate our
products so that our customers have a wide range of options to match their
requirements with the best-of-breed components. Clusters based on these
2nd generation AMD EPYC CPU and Radeon Instinct MI50 GPU powered
servers easily deliver peak performance and efficiency for a wide range of
applications. Researchers can leverage innovative new artificial intelligence
(AI) solutions with these advanced features. Supermicro looks forward to a
productive and mutually beneficial partnership with Goethe University.”
Goethe University Frankfurt hosts a leading supercomputer center that
serves a wide range of international scientists and researchers. A new and
powerful supercomputer was needed to support researchers from varied
disciplines who needed significantly increased processing capacity. The
team assigned to architect and choose the new supercomputer investigated
several server solutions that contained both CPUs and GPUs. Of practical
interest was a system that supported the PCI Express 4.0 specification, which
allows for up to 64 GB/second of data transfer between host memory and
GPU. This performance requirement is critical for applications that must
exchange data with the GPU. Previous PCI Express interfaces were too slow
for high-performance applications that relied on the fastest GPUs available,
and thus a system with PCI Express 4.0 bus readiness was required.
“As we designed and are now implementing our latest supercomputer,
our partnership with Supermicro and AMD has been critical,” stated Prof. Dr.
Volker Lindenstruth, Chair for HPC architecture at Goethe University.” We
have been able to collaborate with their technical engineers to describe our
computational challenges and our potential bottlenecks based on previous
generations of servers. Both Supermicro and AMD have responded with a
balanced system that can easily be utilised by a wide range of scientists who
require a scalable and optimised cluster of fast servers for their research. ”
The Goethe University Frankfurt supercomputing centre serves a diverse
set of researchers and scientists. By utilising servers that contain state-ofthe-art
CPUs, GPUs, and networking, applications that range from particle
physics to climate change simulations can be executed and accelerated on
the AS -4124GS-TNR servers. Recently, Goethe University Frankfurt has been
using HPC technologies to simulate the spread of the COVID-19 virus to
understand how future pandemics spread could be prevented.
“Supercomputers today require unprecedented computational power to
perform the large-scale simulations and complex medical analysis that are
critical to driving the next generation of research.” said Forrest Norrod, senior
vice president and general manager, data centre and embedded systems
group, AMD. “The AMD EPYC™ processors and Radeon Instinct™ MI50
GPUs powering the latest Supermicro server deliver leading I/O bandwidth
and exceptional performance to reach better results, faster for our most
demanding scientific challenges.” n
Camfil wins the Grand Indoor Climate Prize for its world-class
HEPA filtration for cleanrooms
Camfil has announced its win at the 'Grand
Indoor Climate Prize' in Sweden for its advanced
premium HEPA filtration for cleanrooms. Megalam
EnerGuard is the first revolutionary change in
HEPA filtration for cleanrooms in decades. The
filter has three times longer life span than other
HEPA filters with membrane media and can
generate energy savings of 30-50% compared to
traditional fiberglass filters in the industry. The
new state of the art, robust and reliable media
also provides safer handling with minimal risk of
damage during transport and installation.
At the award presentation, it was reflected
that the main drivers that motivated the jury
to select Camfil are - innovation, high filter
efficiency, and a combination of best features of
traditional fiberglass and membrane filters in the
advanced HEPA filter, Megalam EnerGuard.
The breakthrough filter technology efficiently
separates particles from ventilation air, maintains
a lower pressure drop, and contributes to better
energy savings than traditional fibreglass filters.
The robust filter design is highly durable that
significantly reduces the risk of damage to the
filter during transport and installation. Megalam
EnerGuard is highly practical in all applications
and provides premium air filtration.
Torbjörn Bäck, President, Camfil Northern
Europe attended the awards ceremony: “We at
Camfil are elated and proud to be nominated
in the first place and now with this victory, our
success reflects the focus towards sustainability in
several dimensions.
"Our R&D team is dedicated to develop filters
that meet future demands for efficiency, reduce
energy consumption, and produce less waste
through a longer filter lifetime. Thanks to the
commitment and efforts of our colleagues in the
industry and the industry associations, together
we keep driving the indoor air quality technology
development forward”. n
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