LIVERMORE, IBM TEAM UP ON NEW SUPERCOMPUTING INITIATIVE

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and IBM are joining forces on a new high performance computing initiative aimed at helping industry in the United States increase productivity, innovation, and competitiveness. Dubbed Deep Computing Solutions, the lab and IBM will deploy officials at Livermore’s High Performance Computing Innovation Center with the goal of accelerating the development of new technologies, products and services in fields that could include applied energy, green energy, biology, materials science, fabrication, manufacturing, data management, and informatics. Livermore has purchased a five-petaflop supercomputer called Vulcan from IBM to support the effort, as well as unclassified National Nuclear Security Administration research programs, academic alliances and other science and technology work at the lab. The 24-rack IBM Blue Gene/Q system is expected to be delivered this summer. “Maintaining a technological edge over the competition in the global marketplace is vital to both national security and the country’s economic prosperity,” Frederick Streitz, the director of Livermore’s HPCIC, said in a statement. “Deep Computing Solutions will be an important ingredient of the HPC Innovation Center, building on IBM and LLNL’s mutual experience in applying HPC to complex technical problems. Together we will help equip U.S. industry with the tools for technological innovation needed to stay ahead of the global competition.”