Supercomputer on TU Delft campus
The contract with supplier Fujitsu for the Delft High Performance Computing Centre was signed on 22 March 2021. The facility is expected to be operational in autumn 2021. The supercomputer complements existing national and cloud-based facilities, and offers academics and students greater flexibility when conducting their research. The arrival of the supercomputer is accompanied by a comprehensive training programme addressing the effective use of computing facilities.
Research, teaching and innovation
High Performance Computing (HPC) is a ubiquitous technology that significantly contributes to the excellence of teaching, research and innovation at TU Delft. Being able to use simulations for research, instead of complex or time-consuming experiments, is just one benefit. Combining and analysing various data sources can also provide new insights. HPC is therefore a highly powerful tool in a range of fields, such as material science, fluid dynamics, quantum mechanics, design optimisation, big data mining and artificial intelligence (AI).
Flexible
What makes the Delft High-Performance Computing Centre special is its flexibility: there are few limitations regarding hardware or software, so the facility can be quickly adjusted in line with research and teaching requirements. This makes it a valuable addition to SURFsara, the national facility that accommodates very large and complex calculations, and to cloud-based services that function as backup facilities.
Approximately 80 per cent of the DHPC's computing hours will be used for research. The DHPC will also be used for developing new algorithms and testing new types of software and hardware. The facility will soon also offer outstanding teaching opportunities. For example, students and doctoral candidates will no longer need to wait for a long time for permission to test their models and methods on an external supercomputer. Reflecting the increasingly significant role of data in research, a comprehensive training programme is being set up.
Fast
A supercomputer is one of the 500 fastest computers in the world. The Delft supercomputer will be ranked 250th, with a speed of 2 petaflops (one million times a billion calculations per second). The DHPC also offers all of the advantages of a combined, central facility, which optimally complements the existing ICT facilities for research. TU Delft will therefore become the first Dutch university to purchase and utilise a large computing cluster of this kind.
