Internationally:
- HPC is an important indicator of global competitiveness. Countries with mature HPC infrastructures usually play a leading role in the development of science and technology.
- Industry advancement requires the support of HPC which, in turn, expedites the development and manufacturing of products. In industrialized countries, a higher investment in HPC infrastructure implies products of high economic value.
- Countries that don't have computer hardware manufacturing capabilities often use the PC Cluster to perform their R&D. Many high-end computing applications must be run over PC Clusters as opposed to being run over an individual PC.
- Advancements in computer chip technology have shifted the focus of development from the CPU to other parts of the computer such as the interlink bandwidth between computer nodes, size of memory, and the capacity and processing speed of the I/O. These factors greatly affect the quality of HPC.
- HPC hardware and software specifications are becoming unified. Because of this, homogeneous computing platforms are able to connect via Grid technology and share resources with each other.
Nationally:
The following figure compares the performance of NCHC's supercomputers with that of the fastest supercomputers on the Supercomputer TOP500 list. It also shows the Supercomputer TOP500 list average. NCHC's supercomputer's performance has progressed very near the curve of the average over the past 10 years.
Trends of the computers in NCHC and TOP 500 list
NCHC's Storage Facilities:
- StorageTek 9310 Tape Library
- IBM 3494 Tape Library
NCHC's Supercomputer History:
- IBM ES9000 (1993-1996)
- Convex 3800 (1993~1998)
- IBM SP2 (1994~2003)
- SGI Power Challenge XL (1995~2000)
- Cray J916 (1996~2000)
- Fujitsu VPP300 (1996~2003)
- HP SPP2000 (1997~2003)
- SGI Origin 2000 (1998 ~ present)
- IBM SMP SP2 (1999 ~ present)
- SGI Origin 3800 (2001 ~ present)
- IBM P690 (2002 ~ present)
- HP Superdome (2003 ~ present)
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Objectives:
