Friday, November 13th 2020
LLNL's New 'Ruby' Supercomputer Taps Intel for COVID-19 Research
Intel today announced that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) will leverage Intel Xeon Scalable processors in "Ruby," its latest high performance computing cluster. The Ruby system will be used for unclassified programmatic work in support of the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) stockpile stewardship mission, for researching therapeutic drugs and designer antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and for other open science work at LLNL.
Ruby was built in collaboration with Intel, LLNL, Supermicro and Cornelis Networks. The system consists of more than 1,500 nodes, each outfitted with Intel Xeon Scalable processors, and features 192 gigabytes of memory. Ruby will deliver 6 petaflops of peak performance and is expected to rank among the world's top 100 most powerful supercomputers.
Ruby Supercomputer and COVID-19 Work
The Ruby supercomputer will help solve scientific challenges across many disciplines. The system is ideal for running molecular docking calculations that are used in areas such as therapeutic drug research. LLNL researchers recently began using Ruby to identify candidate compounds capable of binding to protein sites in the structure of SARS-CoV-2. This small molecule work could inform vaccine development and help researchers with drug discovery efforts related to COVID-19.
Additional applications for Ruby include large-scale simulations of plasma dynamics and neutron production at LLNL's MegaJOuLe Neutron Imaging Radiography system and simulations for inertial confinement fusion research conducted at the National Ignition Facility and Sandia National Laboratories' Z-machine facility. The system will also be used for researching asteroid detection, moon formation, high-fidelity fission and other basic science through LLNL's Computing Grand Challenge and Laboratory Directed Research and Development programs.
"Our longstanding partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory continues to drive tremendous advancements in scientific research and discovery across a range of applications," said Trish Damkroger, vice president and general manager of high performance computing at Intel. "We are excited to see the Ruby supercomputer now contributing to COVID-19 research."
The Ruby supercomputer is funded by NNSA's Advanced Simulation and Computing program, the Laboratory's Multi-programmatic and Institutional Computing program, and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.
Ruby was built in collaboration with Intel, LLNL, Supermicro and Cornelis Networks. The system consists of more than 1,500 nodes, each outfitted with Intel Xeon Scalable processors, and features 192 gigabytes of memory. Ruby will deliver 6 petaflops of peak performance and is expected to rank among the world's top 100 most powerful supercomputers.
The Ruby supercomputer will help solve scientific challenges across many disciplines. The system is ideal for running molecular docking calculations that are used in areas such as therapeutic drug research. LLNL researchers recently began using Ruby to identify candidate compounds capable of binding to protein sites in the structure of SARS-CoV-2. This small molecule work could inform vaccine development and help researchers with drug discovery efforts related to COVID-19.
Additional applications for Ruby include large-scale simulations of plasma dynamics and neutron production at LLNL's MegaJOuLe Neutron Imaging Radiography system and simulations for inertial confinement fusion research conducted at the National Ignition Facility and Sandia National Laboratories' Z-machine facility. The system will also be used for researching asteroid detection, moon formation, high-fidelity fission and other basic science through LLNL's Computing Grand Challenge and Laboratory Directed Research and Development programs.
"Our longstanding partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory continues to drive tremendous advancements in scientific research and discovery across a range of applications," said Trish Damkroger, vice president and general manager of high performance computing at Intel. "We are excited to see the Ruby supercomputer now contributing to COVID-19 research."
The Ruby supercomputer is funded by NNSA's Advanced Simulation and Computing program, the Laboratory's Multi-programmatic and Institutional Computing program, and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.
23 Comments on LLNL's New 'Ruby' Supercomputer Taps Intel for COVID-19 Research
nice lol nice to see that area is still getting up to date funding
AMD's Ruby was first. :laugh:
Clean 'em up, aim and zap those pesky asteroids.
I believe these rigs will be used for something far moar deeper, far moar sinister, like, oh I don't know, detecting & destroying Chineese & Russion nuclear missles & their undergroud/cave-dwelling silos.....
Or perhaps finding that young laddie who knocked up the Emporor's 12 yo daughter & then went into hiding, hahahaha :)
Eventually, COVID19 will be conquered, and then new software will be loaded onto the machine. Probably nukes, but there's lots of other supercomputer tasks (weather prediction, ASIC chip verification, FEA or simulated car-crashes) that pop up constantly.
That's the joy of software. The same machine today can be used for playing video games, and then swap to editing videos, and then swap to 3d modeling. Same thing with supercomputers: a supercomputer owned by the US Government can be used for US Strategic interests, as those interests change. Right now, the priority is clearly COVID19. Maybe in a year or two, it will be predicting the path of some super-hurricane.
And then you have politicians being idiots or downright pieces of shit. Pick your poison.
You can learn a lot from star wars, but probably nothing from me, so I'll stop.
I think you need purple science and yellow science to research Nukes. Then you build a lot of labs to drink the purple and yellow science. But as everyone knows, artillery is more efficient than nukes anyway and more automated. You might also run your trains in a loop, which is very effective at defense. Trains have so much HP and deal so much damage running into things, you probably never have to build a nuke.
Yeah, between the Artillery patch from 0.18 and train HP, and roboports, I don't think nukes are very useful anymore either.
EDIT: Ah right: Nukes are the fastest way to clear a forest. So nukes are still very useful for that.
Another thing it could be is an old crusty tiddy doing...something :fear:
Back to the topic, does anyone find it ironic that the Supercomputer is called Ruby? Like AMD Ruby? Lol.