Sean Rushton
Climatologists are using it to analyze and predict extremely complex weather patterns. Psychologists are using it to mathematically model the human brain and memory. Quantum physicists are using it to gain insights into the smallest aspects of reality, while astrophysicists are harnessing its power to model entire galaxies. Any takers? If you put your money on high performance computing (HPC), you may collect $200 and pass Go.
Better known as “supercomputing” to those outside research circles, HPC was recently turbocharged in Canada with an investment of $88 million from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) to create the National High Performance Computing Network. As the first pan-Canadian network of HPC facilities, the new “national platform” promises to transform the entire spectrum of research in universities, hospitals and industry across Canada.
According to CFI, rapid developments in HPC technology over the past several years have revolutionized the way in which research is done. Capable of executing complex calculations a thousand times faster than regular home and office computers, HPC technology can deliver researchers’ data in a single day instead of years.
“The CFI National Platform Fund is an exciting new development for high performance computing in Canada,” says Gary Slater, Dean of the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies and a researcher in the Department of Physics. “This is the first time that Canada’s entire HPC community has come together in a shared national effort.”
Indeed, previous to working together on the development of an integrated, national strategy, the HPC community in Canada operated as seven separate regional consortia competing for the same funding and resources. Having determined that such an arrangement could not satisfy the diversity of Canadian HPC needs in the long run, CFI asked all seven regional consortia to team up and develop one unified grant proposal.
“The benefits of such collaboration are already materializing,” insists Slater, who has habitually drawn on the High Performance Computing Virtual Lab (HPCVL). The HPCVL is the regional consortium of parallel HPCs that the University of Ottawa belongs to along with six other Ontario institutions: Carleton University, Loyalist College, Queen’s University, the Royal Military College of Canada, Ryerson University and Seneca College.
“There are many different types of parallel computers, and sometimes an investigator’s research application runs better on one type of computer architecture than another,” explains Slater. “As the seven HPC consortia in Canada have a variety of systems, the necessary computing performance to move research forward is maximized when access to these systems is shared.”
Under the new National Platform Fund, the consortia will not receive the same amount of funding in each round. Instead, funds will be allotted based on which centre is the most outdated and in need of upgrading.
Because HPC technology is always cutting-edge, it gets outdated very quickly; millions of dollars’ worth of equipment needs to be upgraded every three or four years. Before the creation of the CFI, none of the individual universities could build the technology alone. Now, thanks to CFI’s strategic and integrated investment, Canada and its universities can compete with research institutions worldwide.
