Supercomputing extension for TU Dresden

The NHR member, Technische Universität Dresden (NHR@TU Dresden) has commissioned a new supercomputing cluster for data-intensive HPC tasks and data analysis for its Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH), which is scheduled to begin operations next fall.

Last November, TU Dresden awarded the contract for a new High-Performance Computing (HPC) system in the data center of the Center for Information Services and High-Performance Computing (ZIH) to Atos after an Europe-wide tender. This continues the cooperation with the European HPC market leader, which had delivered and installed the two stages of the HPC system "Taurus" at ZIH in 2013 and 2015, whose energy efficiency has also been the subject of scientific research.

“We are pleased to continue to support TU Dresden with HPC expertise via our BullSequana XH2000 installation and to enable cutting-edge research. The new system is extremely energy efficient thanks to our patented and world leading warm water-cooling solution," says Dr. Martin Matzke, Senior Vice President Big Data & Security at Atos Central Europe.

The new installation includes more than 600 nodes powered by the next-generation Intel CPU architecture "Sapphire Rapids" with a total of more than 60,000 CPU cores. A particularly efficient hot water-cooling system will be used for cooling, which also includes the power supplies. In addition, the cluster will include extensive new storage components with 1 PiB capacity for the home file system and 21 PiB scratch filesystem.

"The new HPC cluster is a further step for the important cross-sectional tasks of data science and digitization at TU Dresden, which, together with the foundation of the Center for Interdisciplinary Digital Sciences (CIDS), will both further strategically strengthen the location and take into account TU Dresden's NHR supply mission for the entire German scientific landscape," comments Prof. Staudinger, Rector of TU Dresden.

The system will be used primarily for data-intensive HPC tasks and data analysis. While very high performance for AI tasks is provided with the GPU cluster "Alpha Centauri" (https://tu-dresden.de/zih/news/zih-ki-cluster-2021), which went into operation at the beginning of 2021, the focus is now on high CPU performance, large memory bandwidths and a powerful I/O system that supports the special requirements in data-intensive computing.

"With its very balanced architecture and DDN's exceptionally powerful infrastructure for the fast input/output of data, the system will sustainably promote the important research fields of modeling, simulation and data analytics," explains Prof. Nagel, head of ZIH and founding director of the Central Scientific Institution CIDS.

The HPC cluster is mainly funded by the NHR budget of the ZIH and will be made available for use for research nationwide within the NHR network. The Physics of Life (PoL) Cluster of Excellence at TU Dresden is also co-funding to ensure dedicated computing power for its research. The inauguration is planned for fall.

Further information and contact

Atos

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with 107,000 employees and annual revenue of over € 11 billion. European number one in cybersecurity, cloud and high performance computing, the Group provides tailored end-to-end solutions for all industries in 71 countries. A pioneer in decarbonization services and products, Atos is committed to a secure and decarbonized digital for its clients. Atos is a SE (Societas Europaea), listed on Euronext Paris and included in the CAC 40 ESG and Next 20 Paris Stock indexes.
https://atos.net
Contact: Stefan Pieper, Tel.: +49 178 4686875, E-Mail:

TU Dresden

TU Dresden is one of the largest technical universities in Germany with more than 31,000 students. It has a history of over 190 years. Its wide range of disciplines, unique in Germany, obligates the university to promote interdisciplinarity and to contribute to the integration of science into society. Information Technology is among its five research priority areas. Since 2012, the TUD is one of the eleven Excellence Initiative universities in Germany.
https://tu-dresden.de/tu-dresden/profil

Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH)

ZIH is the university IT center of TU Dresden and the High-Performance Computing (HPC) competence center for TU Dresden and the state of Saxony for over 20 years. Since the beginning of 2021, ZIH is one of nine NHR centers in the initiative “Nationales Hochleistungsrechnen” and thus offers its services to academic users from all over Germany.
Since 2021, ZIH has also been one of the nine centers in the NHR network (National High-Performance Computing), which has been funded by the federal and state governments since January 2021 for an initial period of 10 years. The goal of the NHR is to establish a sustainable and coordinated HPC infrastructure (level 2) for German universities. ZIH is one of seven departments of the Center for Interdisciplinary Digital Sciences (CIDS) founded at TU Dresden in July 2021.
https://tu-dresden.de/zih
Contact: Dr. Andreas Knüpfer

Center for Interdisciplinary Digital Sciences (CIDS)

The CIDS of the TU Dresden brings together Dresden's research on digitization for and in all scientific fields. The integration of seven departments and associated thematic clusters into a center for digital sciences gives a new quality to the interdisciplinary treatment of numerous scientific issues related to digitization. As a crystallization point for innovation and interdisciplinarity, there are bridging functions and interfaces to all areas of the university.
https://tu-dresden.de/cids
Contact: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang E. Nagel (Link)