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Learn more - CREATE AN ACCOUNTSIGN IN JOIN IEEESIGN IN Close Access Thousands of Articles -- Completely Free Create an account and get exclusive content and features: Save articles, download collections, and talk to tech insiders -- all free! For full access and benefits, join IEEE as a paying member. CREATE AN ACCOUNTSIGN IN ComputingTopicMagazineTypeFeature Europe Gets an Exascale Supercomputer Germany will host JUPITER, Europe's entry into the exascale realm Michael Dumiak 6h 3 min read This image shows several rows of computer racks, which give off an eerie blue glow. The existing supercomputing resources at the Forschungszentrum Julich, shown here, will soon be augmented by JUPITER, Europe's first exascale supercomputer. Sascha Kreklau/Forschungszentrum Julich Frontier, the world's first exascale supercomputer--or at least the first one that's been made public--is coming online soon for general scientific use at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. Another such machine, Aurora, is seemingly on track to be completed any day at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. Now Europe's getting up to speed. Through a EUR500 million pan-European effort, an exascale supercomputer called JUPITER (Joint Undertaking Pioneer for Innovative and Transformative Exascale Research) will be installed sometime in 2023 at the Forschungszentrum Julich, in Germany. Thomas Lippert, director of the Julich Supercomputing Center, likens the addition of JUPITER, and the expanding supercomputing infrastructure in Europe more broadly, to the construction of an astonishing new telescope. "We will resolve the world much better," he says. The European Union-backed high-performance computing arm, EuroHPC JU, is underwriting half the cost of the new exascale machine. The rest comes from German federal and state sources. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Exascale supercomputers can, by definition, surpass an exaflop--more than a quintillion floating-point operations per second. Doing so requires enormous machines. JUPITER will reside in a cavernous new building housing several shipping-container-size water-cooled enclosures. Each of these enclosures will hold a collection of closet-size racks, and each rack will support many individual processing nodes. How many nodes will there be? The numbers for JUPITER aren't yet set, but you can get some idea from JUWELS (shorthand for Julich Wizard for European Leadership Science), a recently upgraded system currently ranking 12th on the Top500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers. JUPITER will sit close by but in a separate building from JUWELS, which boasts more than 3,500 computing nodes all told. With contracts still out for bid at press time, scientists at the center were keeping schtum on the chip specs for the new machine. Even so, the overall architecture is established, and outsiders can get some hints about what to expect by looking at the other brawny machines at Julich and elsewhere in Europe. JUPITER will rely on GPU-based accelerators alongside a universal cluster module, which will contain CPUs. The planned architecture also includes high-capacity disk and flash storage, along with dedicated backup units and tape systems for archival data storage. The JUWELS supercomputer uses Atos BullSequana X hardware, with AMD EPYC processors and Mellanox HDR InfiniBand interconnects. The most recent EuroHPC-backed supercomputer to come online, Finland-based LUMI (short for Large Unified Modern Infrastructure) uses HPE Cray hardware, AMD EPYC processors, and HPE Slingshot interconnects. LUMI is currently ranked third in the world. If Jupiter follows suit, it may be similar in many respects to Frontier, which hit exascale in May 2022, also using Cray hardware with AMD processors. Harnessing Europe's new supercomputing horsepower "The computing industry looks at these numbers to measure progress, like a very ambitious goal: flying to the moon," says Christian Plessl, a computer scientist at Paderborn University, in Germany. "The hardware side is just one aspect. Another is, How do you make good use of these machines?" Plessl has teamed up with chemist Thomas Kuhne to run atomic-level simulations of both HIV and the spike protein of SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Last May, the duo ran exaflop-scale calculations for their SARS simulation--involving millions of atoms vibrating on a femtosecond timescale--with quantum-chemistry software running on the Perlmutter supercomputer. They exceeded an exaflop because these calculations were done at lower resolutions, of 16 and 32 bits, as opposed to the 64-bit resolution that is the current standard for counting flops. "The computing industry looks at these numbers to measure progress, like a very ambitious goal: flying to the moon." Kuhne is excited by JUPITER and its potential for running even more demanding high-throughput calculations, the kind of calculations that might show how to use sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen for clean-energy applications. Jose M. Cela at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center says that exascale capabilities are essential for certain combustion simulations, for really-large-scale fluid dynamics, and for planetary simulations that encompass whole climates. Lippert looks forward to a kind of federated supercomputing, where the several European supercomputer centers will use their huge machines in concert, distributing calculations to the appropriate supercomputers via a service hub. Cela says communication speeds between centers aren't fast enough yet to manage this for some problems--a gas-turbine combustion simulation, for example, must be done inside a single machine. But this approach could be useful for certain problems in the life sciences, such as in genetic and protein analysis. The EuroHPC JU's Daniel Opalka says European businesses will also make use of this burgeoning supercomputing infrastructure. Even as supercomputers get faster and larger, they must work harder to be more energy efficient. That's especially important in Europe, which is enduring what may be a long, costly energy crisis. JUPITER will draw 15 megawatts of power during operation. Plans call for it to run on clean energy. With wind turbines getting bigger and better, JUPITER's energy demands could perhaps be met with just a couple of mammoth turbines. And with cooling water circulating among the mighty computing boxes, the hot water that results could be used to heat homes and businesses nearby, as is being done with LUMI in Finland. It's one more way this computing powerhouse will be tailored to the EU's energy realities. From Your Site Articles * Top500: Frontier Still No. 1. Where's China? > * How the World's Most Powerful Supercomputer Inched Toward the Exascale > * The Beating Heart of the World's First Exascale Supercomputer > Related Articles Around the Web * First European 'exascale' supercomputer to be hosted in Germany ... > * The EU enters the exascale era with the announcement of new ... > * DOE Explains...Exascale Computing | Department of Energy > exascale supercomputersexascale computinghigh-performance computing Michael Dumiak Michael Dumiak is a Berlin-based writer and reporter covering science and culture and a longtime contributor to IEEE Spectrum. For Spectrum , he has covered digital models of ailing hearts in Belgrade, reported on technology from Minsk and shale energy from the Estonian-Russian border, explored cryonics in Saarland, and followed the controversial phaseout of incandescent lightbulbs in Berlin. He is author and editor of Woods and the Sea: Estonian Design and the Virtual Frontier. The Conversation (0) US President Joe Biden walks near Chevy vehicles as he arrives to deliver remarks during a visit to the General Motors Factory ZERO electric vehicle assembly plant in Detroit, Michigan on November 17, 2021. TransportationTopicEnergyTypeAnalysis The EV Transition Explained: Local Policies Shape Global Competition 2h 8 min read blue spirals along a green line and red spiral along a green line ComputingTopicTypeNews These Optical Gates Offer Electronic Access 16 Dec 2022 2 min read A group of gold IEEE Medals on black background. The InstituteTopicTypeNews IEEE Honors Iconic Engineers 16 Dec 2022 3 min read RoboticsTopicTypeNews Video Friday: No Pilot Needed Your weekly selection of awesome robot videos Evan Ackerman Evan Ackerman is a senior editor at IEEE Spectrum. Since 2007, he has written over 6,000 articles on robotics and technology. He has a degree in Martian geology and is excellent at playing bagpipes. 16 Dec 2022 2 min read A photo showing an autonomous drone launching itself from a metal box on the side of a highway video fridayrobotics Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months. Please send us your events for inclusion. ICRA 2023: 29 May-2 June 2023, LONDON RoboCup 2023: 4-10 July 2023, BORDEAUX, FRANCE RSS 2023: 10-14 July 2023, DAEGU, KOREA IEEE RO-MAN 2023: 28-31 August 2023, BUSAN, KOREA Enjoy today's videos! Well, now humans aren't necessary for launching drones, landing drones, charging drones, or flying drones. Thanks, Skydio! [ Skydio ] Do not underestimate the pleasure of hearing little metal feet climbing up metal walls. [ Science Robotics ] The latest in the Zoox testing series, this video showcases how Zoox tests the maneuverability capabilities of its robotaxi, which are critical for operation in dense urban environments. Four-wheel steering, bidirectional design, and active suspension are some of the features integrated into the Zoox robotaxi to ensure every ride is a smooth ride. [ Zoox ] Thanks, Whitney! The Ligo device is a novel 3D bioprinting platform that supports the functional healing of skin tissue after acute skin injuries such as extensive burns. It is developed in Australia by an interdisciplinary team at Sydney-based startup Inventia Life Science. The Ligo robot prints tiny droplets containing the patient's skin cells and optimized biomaterials into the wound directly in the operating room, combining the Kuka LBR Med and Inventia's patented 3D bioprinting technology. In this way, tissue-guided regeneration is stimulated, allowing the body to heal itself and restore healthy skin that improves the quality of life for skin-injury survivors. [ Inventia ] In the first quarter of 2022, our group demoed ANYmal and Spot carrying out automated inspection at Chevron's blending plant in Ghent, Belgium. [ ORI ] I have to think that for teleoperation, this is much harder than it looks. [ Sanctuary AI ] Meet the software Development Engineers from Amazon's Global Ops Robotics, who are working together to deliver innovations that will shape the future of Amazon operations. [ Amazon ] This video highlights the impact of Covariant's AI-powered Robotic Putwall, at Capacity, a third-party logistics company serving some of the world's largest e-commerce brands. Affectionately named Waldo, the autonomous put wall has been fulfilling thousands of customer orders at over 500 picks per hour, with less than 0.1 percent of them needing human intervention. [ Covariant ] What does Moxie do? Best to just ask Moxie. [ Embodied ] I'm not sure what this is, but I'll be watching! [ Fraunhofer ] It still kind of blows my mind that you can just go and buy yourself a robot dog. [ Trossen ] Here are a series of talks from the Can We Build Baymax? workshop, focusing on education and open source for humanoid robots. [ CWBB ] This University of Pennsylvania GRASP on Robotics talk is from Harold Soh at the National University of Singapore: "Towards Trustworthy Robots That Interact With People." What will it take to develop robots that work with us in real-world tasks? In this talk, we'll discuss some of our work across the autonomy stack of a robot as we make progress towards an answer. We'll begin with multimodal sensing and perception, and then move on to modeling humans with little data. We'll end with the primary insights gained in our journey and a discussion of challenges in deriving robots that we trust to operate in social environments. [ UPenn ] Keep Reading |Show less ComputingTopicTypeSponsored Article Learn How Global Configuration Management and IBM CLM Work Together In this presentation we will build the case for component-based requirements management 321 Gang 321 Gang helps organizations improve their ability to design and develop mission-critical systems and software. 07 Nov 2022 2 min read softwareIBMlifecycle analysisdevelopmentsoftware engineering requirements management This is a sponsored article brought to you by 321 Gang. To fully support Requirements Management (RM) best practices, a tool needs to support traceability, versioning, reuse, and Product Line Engineering (PLE). This is especially true when designing large complex systems or systems that follow standards and regulations. Most modern requirement tools do a decent job of capturing requirements and related metadata. Some tools also support rudimentary mechanisms for baselining and traceability capabilities ("linking" requirements). The earlier versions of IBM DOORS Next supported a rich configurable traceability and even a rudimentary form of reuse. DOORS Next became a complete solution for managing requirements a few years ago when IBM invented and implemented Global Configuration Management (GCM) as part of its Engineering Lifecycle Management (ELM, formerly known as Collaborative Lifecycle Management or simply CLM) suite of integrated tools. On the surface, it seems that GCM just provides versioning capability, but it is so much more than that. GCM arms product/system development organizations with support for advanced requirement reuse, traceability that supports versioning, release management and variant management. It is also possible to manage collections of related Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and Systems Engineering artifacts in a single configuration. On-demand Webinar Available Now 321 Gang logo Global Configuration Management - The Game Changer for Requirements Management In this presentation we will build the case for component-based requirements management, illustrate Global Configuration Management concepts, and focus on various Component Usage Patterns within the context of GCM 7.0.2 and IBM's Engineering Lifecycle (ELM) suite of tools. Watch on-demand webinar now - Before GCM, Project Areas were the only containers available for organizing data. Project Areas could support only one stream of development. Enabling application local Configuration Management (CM) and GCM allows for the use of Components. Components are contained within Project Areas and provide more granular containers for organizing artifacts and new configuration management constructs; streams, baselines, and change sets at the local and global levels. Components can be used to organize requirements either functionally, logically, physically, or using some combination of the three. A stream identifies the latest version of a modifiable configuration of every artifact housed in a component. The stream automatically updates the configuration as new versions of artifacts are created in the context of the stream. The multiple stream capability in components equips teams the tools needed to seamlessly manage multiple releases or variants within a single component. GCM arms product/system development organizations with support for advanced requirement reuse, traceability that supports versioning, release management, and variant management. Prior to GCM support, the associations between Project Areas would enable traceability between single version of ALM artifacts. With GCM, virtual networks of components can be constructed allowing for traceability between artifacts across components - between requirements components and between artifacts across other ALM domains (software, change management, testing, modeling, product parts, etc.). 321 Gang has defined common usage patterns for working with components and their streams. These patterns include Variant Development, Parallel Release Management, Simple Single Stream Development, and others. The GCM capability for virtual networks and the use of some of these patterns provide a foundation to support PLE. The 321 Gang has put together a short webinar also titled Global Configuration Management: A Game Changer for Requirements Management, that expands on the topics discussed here. During the webinar we build a case for component-based requirements management, illustrate Global Configuration Management concepts, and introduce common GCM usage patterns using ELM suite of tools. 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