A publication of the Advanced Simulation & Computing Division, NA-121.2, NNSA Defense Programs
June 2009
NA-ASC-500-09—Issue 11
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“Dawn” of a New Era for Computing Partnership
The partnership that has dominated high-performance computing (HPC) for more than a decade was celebrated last week in a ceremony dedicating the Advanced Simulation & Computing (ASC ) Program’s latest supercomputer, Dawn.
The dedication in the Terascale Simulation Facility, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), was attended by representatives from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the three national weapons laboratories, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and IBM.
Dimitri Kusnezov, director of NNSA’s Office of Research and Development for National Security, Science and Technology, lauded the accomplishments of the Livermore ASC Program.
Bruce Goodwin, principal associate director for Weapons and Complex Integration (at LLNL), served as host and opened the dedication by noting that the partnership with IBM is being renewed for a fourth time since 1996, when what is today the ASC P rogram was launched. ASC unites the national security HPC expertise of Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia national laboratories.
“Blue, White, Purple, and BlueGene/L preceded Sequoia and have maintained American pre-eminence in high-performance computing and been central to preserving America’s nuclear deterrent. This has been key to avoiding global war,” Goodwin told dignitaries packed in the Armadillo Theater May 27. “These advanced computers and the exquisitely detailed science applications that run on them are a sure sign to any potential adversary and to our friends that the American deterrent is alive and well.”
Dimitri Kusnezov, director of NNSA’s Office of Research and Development for National Security, Science and Technology, lauded what the Livermore ASC program has accomplished thanks to “leadership, vision, and partnership.”
“We’re not here today about this machine (Dawn). This ceremony is not about the hardware; it’s about the people here. It’s about the leadership, the vision, the partnership, and the willingness to take on the challenges that the country faces,” Kusnezov said. “It’s about thinking beyond yourselves and delivering things that are ‘serial number one.’ These systems are the enablers of innovation. Ultimately, this is a tool for people who think beyond themselves.”
Livermore has played an important role in the development of HPC, not only for national security, but for the broader scientific community as well, Kusnezov said. “We’ve relied in hard times on institutional commitment and George Miller [director of LLNL] has helped the ASC Program immensely. It takes institutional commitment to help push high-end computing in the broader scientific community. It takes vision and leadership to think beyond just the program lines and to commit the institution to thinking bigger.”
Director George Miller said Dawn is the latest in a series of machines that have produced breakthrough science. “It’s important to step back and look at what we’ve accomplished. In 2005, we celebrated the dedication of Purple and BlueGene/L and almost immediately we saw incredible things happen. For example, Purple was the first national user facility for NNSA,” Miller said. “Purple has been used to do some incredible laser plasma physics calculations that will lead us to the first ignition experiments at the National Ignition Facility. It has truly been a workhorse for the Complex.”
The results of an early high-resolution calculation on Purple led to a “discovery no one had anticipated” and resulted in the creation of the Thermonuclear Burn Initiative within the weapons program, Miller said, adding, “I’m expecting no less of those of you who are working on Dawn now.”
John Kelly III, senior vice president and director for IBM Research, called the dedication a “huge milestone” that is emblematic of the partnership among Livermore, NNSA, and IBM. “It’s the result of decades of investment by IBM, the national labs and DOE. The result is something that was really unimaginable just a few years ago.”
“We in IBM research view ourselves as being essentially the last great industrial research lab in the world,” Kelly said. “We take that not only as an honor but also as a tremendous responsibility. We realize that as strong as we are, we cannot do it ourselves. We need to partner to be able to do the kinds of things we’re celebrating today.”
Kelly said IBM is “very proud” of the partnership, which “stands out as an example of how things need to be done in the world of the future and as the model for innovation moving forward.”
Also speaking during the ceremony were Rodney Adkins, senior vice president of Development and Manufacturing IBM Systems and Technology Group and Alice Williams, manager of NNSA’s Livermore Site Office (LSO). “It stretches the imagination to think of what future discoveries are waiting when the science teams from the three laboratories are let loose on this resource,” Williams said.
Dawn is a 500-teraFLOPS (trillion floating operations per second) IBM machine of the same lineage as BlueGene/L, which held the title of the world’s fastest supercomputer for three and one-half years (November 2004–May 2008). Delivered to LLNL in January, Dawn (an IBM Blue Gene/P system) will lay the applications foundation for multi-petaFLOPS (quadrillion floating operations per second) on Sequoia, a 20-petaFLOPS IBM system to be delivered in 2011.
Both systems are part of NNSA’s “Sequoia procurement” contract with IBM, which builds on the 12-year partnership that has produced two Livermore HPC systems (White, BGL) that have been ranked as the world’s fastest supercomputers by the Top500, widely regarded as the computing industry standard for measuring computing power.
Dignitaries who attended the Dawn dedication pose in front of the recently installed supercomputer in the Terascale Simulation Facility after the ceremony.
Looking to the future, Kusnezov said, “Simulation remains a keystone in our national security enterprise. In the year to come, as we try to rethink the role and portfolio of national security activities for which the NNSA is responsible, simulation will remain a centerpiece of everything we do.”
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