U.S. Department of Energy selects Intel, Cray to deliver Aurora
WASHINGTON – Intel announced that the U.S. Department of Energy selected the California-based chipmaker to build a supercomputer for the Argonne National Laboratory.
Dubbed Aurora, the computer is set for delivery in 2018 and is “the largest system currently procured worldwide,” according to a statement from Intel. Intel will develop the platform with Cray; the system will use Intel’s computing scalable framework and Cray’s Shasta, which can accommodate multiple processor types, according to a Cray blog post.
Cray President and CEO Peter Ungaro said the project will result in “a leadership-class system that will be ready for advancing scientific discovery from Day One.”
The Argonne National Laboratory, located in Lemont, Ill., is a government-funded research center managed by the DOE working in close conference with the University of Chicago. The laboratory focuses on advancing research into fields including renewable energy, environmental science and national security projects.
The contract with ALCF, valued at $200 million, calls for the construction of super computers at Oak Ridge, Argonne and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories that will be seven to eight times more powerful than current models. Intel will also deliver a second supercomputer to the DOE; called Theta, which is set for 2016.
Aurora will have a peak performance of 180 petaflops and Theta will feature 8.5 petaflops running off 1.7 megawatts of power.
“The selection of Intel to deliver the Aurora supercomputer is validation of our unique position to lead a new era in HPC,” said Raj Hazra, Intel’s VP of the data center group and GM of the technical computing group.
Rick Stevens, the associate lab director at Argonne, said the project “will be critically important to U.S. high-performance computing efforts for years to come.”
