PNNL's proving ground for emerging supercomputer technologies looks for more input from researchers
News Release
September 25, 2017 
RICHLAND, Wash. - 2 years ago, the D.O.E.'s Pacific Northwest National Lab established a proving ground in Richland for the next step in supercomputing development. Called the Center for Advanced Technology Evaluation, CENATE's participating researchers have been deploying testbeds and methods that can analyze and verify new technologies such as processors, types of memory, and networks. CENATE will provide insight into the impact this next generation of high-performing computers will have on DOE's research community.
Now, CENATE has announced a new director, computer scientist Kevin Barker. Barker has extensive experience developing tools and techniques to model performance of extreme scale hardware and software. He has also developed applications for parallel computing. Barker came to PNNL 7 years ago from Los Alamos National Laboratory.
"The goal of CENATE is to evaluate innovative and transformational technologies that will enable future D.O.E. leadership class computing systems to accelerate scientific discovery," said PNNL's Lab Director Steven Ashby. "We will partner with major computing companies and leading researchers to co-design and test the leading-edge components and systems that will ultimately be used in future supercomputing platforms."
Those leadership class supercomputers now, such as Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Titan, are petascale systems that can perform a quadrillion - or a million billion - operations per 2nd and handle petabytes of data. The next step is exascale, or machines that can perform one quintillion - or a billion billion - calculations per second. These exascale systems represent a one-hundred to one-thousand times increase in performance and data handling capability over today's biggest systems.
"With CENATE, its opportunities are also its challenges," Barker said. "We want to look further out at the evolution of computers, beyond technologies that are already widely accessible in the marketplace. We want prototypes, systems that aren't commercially accessible yet, as well as promising emerging technologies, to evaluate and guide their development."
In its 1st 2 years, CENATE has already worked with advanced systems in close collaborations with IBM, Micron, Data Vortex, and NVIDIA, providing design, measurement, instrumentation, and analysis. In one effort, CENATE's work with Data Vortex helped shape the 3rd version of Data Vortex's computer, which has an internal network designed in such a way as to make it congestion-free. Last year, editors at the trade magazine HPCwire named PNNL's CENATE partnerships the "Best HPC Collaboration Between Government & Industry."
CENATE is taking the opportunity that bringing in new leadership affords to refine its processes at the same time.
"We want to have more strategic interaction with the research community at large," said Barker. "Up to now, we've procured systems and then invited researchers to come test them. Now we want to solicit input and foster collaborations from the community. 'Is there something you want to do but can't because you don't have the right machine?'"
Barker replaces former PNNL computer scientist Adolfy Hoisie.
This work is supported by the D.O.E. Office of Science.
Tags: Computational Science, Operations, Supercomputer, Staff Appointments, Hardware, Software
Interdisciplinary teams at Pacific Northwest National Lab address many of America's most pressing issues in energy, the environment and national security through advances in basic and applied science. Founded in 1965, PNNL employs 4,400 staff and has an yearly budget of nearly $1 billion. It is managed and operated by Battelle for the D.O.E.'s Office of Science. As the single biggest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, the Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information on PNNL, visit the PNNL News Center, or follow PNNL on Facebook, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.
