View of Its Enormous Hence Been Conventionally Limited to Size and Time Scales with Ab Initio Aids in the Design of Novel Materials
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Issue 09 CONTENTS January 2021 FEATURES COVER STORY p. 24 p. 16 Peak Performance How Japan’s Fugaku KEEPING balanced power and efficiency for the best SINGAPORE of both worlds COOL FEATURES How HPC is p. 30 helping cities like Of Virtual Competitions and Real Relationships Singapore beat the heat A virtual Student Cluster Competition 2020 p. 6 Digital Dispatch Supercomputing news from around the world p. 10 Crunching the Numbers of Climate Change Modeling our changing climate p. 36 Business Bytes The latest industry moves p. 38 Super Snapshot Striking a balance between performance and efficiency NSCC_21-893_Ad_Express_SCA_04.indd 1 20/1/21 17:25 SUPERCOMPUTING aSIa EDITORIAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE EDITOR’S NOTE Prof. Tan Tin Wee Prof. Satoshi Matsuoka Prof. John Gustafson Yves Poppe CEO & PUBLISHER ugaku may be the fastest supercomputer in Dr. Juliana Chan the world but it was never designed simply to climb the rankings. Instead, the thousands EDITOR-IN-CHIEF of researchers working on it had a singular Dr. Rebecca Tan vision: the lofty Mount Fuji, a pinnacle of STAFF WRITER performance that would serve a broad base Kamila Navarro of users. In our cover story (Peak Performance: Japan’s Sheryl Lee FFugaku Supercomputer, p. 16), we speak to Fugaku’s chief Jill Arul architect, Professor Satoshi Matsuoka, who described CONTRIBUTORS it as being as easy to use as a Prius while nonetheless Eugene Low giving users the performance of a supercar like a Porsche. Tim Hornyak Although COVID-related applications were understandably one of the first uses of the powerful ART DIRECTOR machine, Fugaku’s greatest impact may well be on the Lam Oi Keat imminent threat of climate change. From forecasting SENIOR DESIGNER the weather to simulating the entire Earth, scientists Shelly Liew are using supercomputers to understand the impact SALES & MARKETING of human activities on our planet—and what can be Samantha Yeap done to mitigate the damage (Crunching the Numbers Sammi Ting of Climate Change, p. 10). Jillene Kee This is not without a touch of irony, since PUBLISHED BY supercomputers themselves consume large amounts Wildtype Media Group Pte Ltd of electricity, with the most powerful ones requiring the equivalent a small city’s supply to run. The power DISTRIBUTED BY limit is a serious challenge designers of next generation Pansing Distribution Pte Ltd exascale machines will have to confront, HEAD OFFICE but one that is now being taken very Wildtype Media Group Pte Ltd seriously (Striking a Balance Between 71 Ayer Rajah Crescent #06-26 Performance and Efficiency, p. 38). Singapore 139951 [email protected] Website: www.asianscientist.com/subscribe Rebecca Tan, Ph.D. Editor-in-chief Supercomputing Asia Combining savvy communication with technical rigor, Wildtype Media Group is Asia’s leading STEM-focused media company, spanning digital, print, video, custom publishing and events. Brands under Wildtype Media Group include the flagship Asian Scientist Magazine and Supercomputing Asia, award-winning titles available in print and online. www.wildtype.media To order reprints or e-prints, or request permission to republish Supercomputing Asia content, please contact [email protected] Supercomputing Asia, MCI (P) 025/04/2020, is published by Wildtype Media Group Pte Ltd. Printed by KHL Printing Co Pte Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this /asianscientist @asianscientist publication is to be reproduced, stored, transmitted, digitally or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher. The information contained herein is accurate at time of printing. 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We accept no responsibility for the content of advertising material, including, without www.asianscientist.com limitation, any error, omission or inaccuracy therein. 06 / SUPERCOMPUTING ASIA / ISSUE 09 ISSUE 09 / SUPERCOMPUTING ASIA / 07 Digital Dispatch MODELING CLIMATE CHANGE WITH EARTH’S REVEALING THE SECRETS DIGITAL TWIN OF REMDESIVIR Planet Earth is about to get a digital twin in the form of a climate model that Researchers from the University of can simulate the atmosphere, ocean, North Texas are using supercomputers ice, land and even human activity with to simulate how remdesivir and other unequaled precision. Called Destination antiviral drugs block SARS-CoV-2 Earth, the model developed by scientists reproduction, with the aim of improving academic supercomputer and the eighth from the European Union will run on drug efficacy. fastest in the world. Nonetheless, the supercomputers and be able to forecast Using the Stampede2 and Frontera team needed to save computational time extreme weather events days to years supercomputers at the Texas Advanced to efficiently simulate their molecular in advance. Computing Center, a team led by Professor systems made of hundreds of thousands Destination Earth will detail the Andres Cisneros at the University of North of atoms. To do so, the researchers planet’s atmosphere in one-kilometer EUROPE BETS BIG ON Texas modeled the chemical reactions adopted a hybrid approach to better focus boxes, a scale far finer than existing taking place at two key proteins involved on interactions at the active site, with a climate models. Thanks to this high SUPERCOMPUTING in coronavirus replication, namely more approximate molecular dynamics resolution, the platform can use more NSP-12 and the main protease. approach for the rest of the reactions. detailed real-time data and directly render The European Commission is planning to Remdesivir, the first drug approved by “Frontera, with not only compute even small-scale processes, increasing invest €8 billion (~US$9.47 billion) in its the US Food and Drug Administration power but the intercommunication prediction accuracy. Predictions include supercomputing industry over 13 years for use against the coronavirus, works by between the nodes, allows us to convection, where hot air rises to form starting from 2021. The investment will binding to and inhibiting both proteins, run these quantum mechanics and clouds and storms, and swirling eddies be channeled through the EuroHPC Joint thereby blocking replication. molecular mechanics calculations with in the ocean that move heat and carbon. Undertaking, an entity that pools the With a peak power of 38.8 much higher speed and throughput,” Beyond enhanced climate resources of 32 European Union member petaFLOPS, Frontera is the fastest said Cisneros. forecasting, Destination Earth is states to develop supercomputing THE NOBEL PRIZE OF intended to help policymakers gauge the technologies and applications. societal impacts of climate change. The Currently in the works is a high- GOOGLE’S QUANTUM CHEMISTRY SIMULATIONS model will be run on one of three pre- performance, low-power microprocessor SUPERCOMPUTING exascale supercomputers in the works codenamed ‘Rhea.’ Slated for release in DOUBLES PREVIOUS RECORD under the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking: 2021, Rhea is anticipated to play an Finland’s LUMI, Spain’s MareNostrum important role in equipping European GOES TO… In the largest chemical simulation ever neural network, dynamically adjusting 5 or Italy’s Leonardo. The European supercomputers with exascale performed on a quantum computer parameters to handle noisy quantum Commission is planning to implement capabilities. Apart from building exascale to date, scientists from Google’s AI logic and deal with errors during Destination Earth in 2021. computers to reach supercomputing’s A team of nine researchers from were able to efficiently simulate a quantum team used the company’s computation. This process is similar next frontier, the funds will also be used Chinese and American institutions more than one nanosecond-long 54-qubit Sycamore processor and an to how classical neural networks use to integrate quantum accelerators for has won the 2020 Gordon Bell Prize trajectory of over 100 million atoms in-house quantum algorithm to model optimization to manage imperfections hybrid machines. for pushing the limits of ab initio per day. The team successfully bond energies in chemical compounds. in data. Though the investment has yet to be molecular dynamics (AIMD) using scaled this proposed algorithm on Their calculation was twice as large “We validate that algorithms formally approved by the Council of the machine learning. Compared with US’ Summit, the second fastest as previous chemistry calculations on being developed for currently available European Union, the plan is set to develop standard molecular dynamics, the supercomputer in the world with a quantum computers. quantum computers can achieve the European leadership in supercomputing. AIMD approach allows for greater speed of 149 petaFLOPS. Accurately modeling the behavior precision required for experimental “Our proposal today will foster increased modeling precision, but is also more The DPMD development opens of chemical bonds not only improves