Science / Technology
Supercomputer Rises to Sixth Nationally
By Kevin Durkin on November 23, 2009 7:55 AM
- Photo/John Livzey
USC’s Center for High-Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) houses the nation’s sixth fastest supercomputer in an academic setting, according to TOP500 Supercomputer Sites, which ranks the 500 most powerful computer systems in the world.
This fall, USC’s supercomputer cluster achieved a benchmark of 72.05 teraflops, or 72.05 trillion floating-point calculations per second, on its 1,280-node, 10-gigabit-backbone cluster, placing it sixth in the nation among academic supercomputers, 19th in the world among academic supercomputers and 71st in the world among all supercomputers.
The new ranking for USC’s supercomputer represents a rise from last spring’s rankings, when the supercomputer achieved a benchmark of 51.41 teraflops and earned the rank of seventh among academic supercomputers in the United States and 76th among all supercomputers in the world.
“Recent advances in high-performance computing have set computational science on an equal footing with other methods of scientific inquiry, such as experimentation and theoretical investigation,” said Priya Vashishta, faculty executive director of USC’s High-Performance Computing and Communications. “To tackle the most challenging science and engineering questions, researchers increasingly rely on the powerful computing resources, massive data storage, visualization environments and software that HPPC provides.”
Vashishta is a professor of chemical engineering, materials science and computer science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and a professor of physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at USC College.
“USC faculty and student researchers are particularly fortunate to have a high-performance computing facility that ranks so highly among the world’s supercomputers,” he said. “As they learn how to use HPCC’s resources, they develop the 21st-century skills necessary to become global leaders in advanced technologies and critical scientific discoveries.”
High-Performance Computing and Communications is an interdisciplinary partnership that bridges USC’s unique strengths in scientific computing, computer science and communications by supporting research groups in a variety of disciplines, including bioelectrics, cosmology, engineering, geophysics, linguistics, psychology and health sciences.
TAGS: innovation
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Los Angeles Times featured the USC Rossier School’s centennial gala, which took place February 1. USC President Steven B. Sample was honored with the Global Education Leadership Award, and USC alumna Cindy McCain was honored with the Dean’s Alumni Achievement Award. “It’s rare for someone who’s lived as long as I have in politics with my husband to be speechless, but I truly am,” McCain said. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa introduced Sample, recounting his work in raising USC’s stature globally, being open to international students, and understanding USC’s position in Los Angeles as “the gateway to Asia and Latin America.” Nearly 350 people attended the event, including Sen. John McCain; Ed Roski, chairman of the USC Board of Trustees; Barbara and Roger Rossier, for whom the Rossier School is named; John Katzman, Princeton Review founder and benefactor of an endowed chair at the Rossier School; and alumni and longtime USC supporters Debbie and J. Terrence Lanni and Verna Dauterive.
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The Chronicle of Higher Education featured linguist Paul Frommer of the USC Marshall School, who created the language Na’vi for the Golden Globe-winning movie “Avatar.” “Doing this kind of work as an academic is not going to advance your research reputation. It’s not going to result in publications in peer-reviewed journals,” Frommer said. “But it just may push the world forward in the way it’s turning on young people to the wonders of language”
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