With “Piz Daint” the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) is putting a new supercomputer system in operation that will provide the necessary compute performance and consume less power. This is made possible by a novel hybrid computer system which makes use of sophisticated graphics processors (GPUs) as used in the gaming industry.
The supercomputer “Piz Daint”, which has been in operation at the national supercomputing centre (CSCS) since April, is presently being extended with graphic processing units (GPU) from processor manufacturer NVIDIA. In this extension, one of two conventional processor (CPU) located on a compute node is being replaced by a GPU. Compared to a conventional CPU, the GPU has reduced functionalities that are optimized for numerical calculations. In simple terms, this enables the GPU to compute much faster, while saving energy. Furthermore, the new supercomputer gets much of its overall performance and efficiency from a novel interconnecting network between compute nodes that has been designed by computer manufacturer Cray. It is the first of its kind, and has been designed to help researchers solve more detailed, higher-resolution models – and this all while consuming less power.
