Edinburgh DiRAC Resource Grant
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: Sch of Physics and Astronomy
Abstract
DiRAC (Distributed Research utilising Advanced Computing) is the integrated supercomputing facility for theoretical modelling and HPC-based research in particle physics, nuclear physics, astronomy and cosmology, areas in which the UK is world-leading. It was funded as a result of investment of £12.32 million, from the Government's Large Facilities Capital Fund, together with investment from STFC and from universities. In 2012, the DiRAC facility was upgraded with a further £15 million capital investment from government (DiRAC-2).
The DiRAC facility provides a variety of computer architectures, matching machine architecture to the algorithm design and requirements of the research problems to be solved. The science facilitated includes: using supercomputers to enable scientists to calculate what theories of the early universe predict and to test them against observations of the present universe; undertaking lattice field theory calculations whose primary aim is to increase the predictive power of the Standard Model of elementary particle interactions through numerical simulation of Quantum Chromodynamics; carrying out state-of-the-art cosmological simulations, including the large-scale distribution of dark matter, the formation of dark matter haloes, the formation and evolution of galaxies and clusters, the physics of the intergalactic medium and the properties of the intracluster gas.
This grant is to support the continued operation of the DiRAC facilities until 2017 to ensure that the UK remains one of the world-leaders of theoretical modelling in particle physics, astronomy and cosmology.
The DiRAC facility provides a variety of computer architectures, matching machine architecture to the algorithm design and requirements of the research problems to be solved. The science facilitated includes: using supercomputers to enable scientists to calculate what theories of the early universe predict and to test them against observations of the present universe; undertaking lattice field theory calculations whose primary aim is to increase the predictive power of the Standard Model of elementary particle interactions through numerical simulation of Quantum Chromodynamics; carrying out state-of-the-art cosmological simulations, including the large-scale distribution of dark matter, the formation of dark matter haloes, the formation and evolution of galaxies and clusters, the physics of the intergalactic medium and the properties of the intracluster gas.
This grant is to support the continued operation of the DiRAC facilities until 2017 to ensure that the UK remains one of the world-leaders of theoretical modelling in particle physics, astronomy and cosmology.
Planned Impact
The high-performance computing applications supported by DiRAC typically involve new algorithms and implementations optimised for high energy efficiency which impose demands on computer architectures that the computing industry has found useful for hardware and system software design and testing.
DiRAC researchers have on-going collaborations with computing companies that maintain this strong connection between the scientific goals of the DiRAC Consortium and the development of new computing technologies that drive the commercial high-performance computing market, with economic benefits to the companies involved and more powerful computing capabilities available to other application areas including many that address socio-economic challenges.
DiRAC researchers have on-going collaborations with computing companies that maintain this strong connection between the scientific goals of the DiRAC Consortium and the development of new computing technologies that drive the commercial high-performance computing market, with economic benefits to the companies involved and more powerful computing capabilities available to other application areas including many that address socio-economic challenges.
People |
ORCID iD |
Richard Kenway (Principal Investigator) | |
Peter Boyle (Co-Investigator) |
Publications
Dalla Vecchia C
(2020)
Constraining the inner density slope of massive galaxy clusters
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Davies C
(2020)
Hadronic-vacuum-polarization contribution to the muon's anomalous magnetic moment from four-flavor lattice QCD
in Physical Review D
Davies C
(2022)
Cosmological forecasts with the clustering of weak lensing peaks
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Davies C
(2021)
Optimal void finders in weak lensing maps
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Davies C
(2022)
Windows on the hadronic vacuum polarization contribution to the muon anomalous magnetic moment
in Physical Review D
Davies C
(2021)
Constraining cosmology with weak lensing voids
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Davies CTH
(2020)
Lattice QCD Matrix Elements for the B_{s}^{0}-B[over ¯]_{s}^{0} Width Difference beyond Leading Order.
in Physical review letters
Davies J
(2020)
The quenching and morphological evolution of central galaxies is facilitated by the feedback-driven expulsion of circumgalactic gas
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Davison T
(2022)
Complex Crater Formation by Oblique Impacts on the Earth and Moon
in Geophysical Research Letters
Davé R
(2020)
Galaxy cold gas contents in modern cosmological hydrodynamic simulations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
De Jong E
(2022)
Primordial black hole formation with full numerical relativity
in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
De Vries N
(2023)
The interactions of the elliptical instability and convection
in Physics of Fluids
Deason A
(2022)
Dwarf stellar haloes: a powerful probe of small-scale galaxy formation and the nature of dark matter
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Deason A
(2021)
Stellar splashback: the edge of the intracluster light
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Deason A
(2021)
The mass of the Milky Way out to 100 kpc using halo stars
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Debattista V
(2020)
Box/peanut-shaped bulges in action space
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Debras F
(2019)
Acceleration of superrotation in simulated hot Jupiter atmospheres
in Astronomy & Astrophysics
DeGraf C
(2021)
Morphological evolution of supermassive black hole merger hosts and multimessenger signatures
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
DeGraf C
(2020)
Cosmological simulations of massive black hole seeds: predictions for next-generation electromagnetic and gravitational wave observations
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Del Debbio L
(2021)
Renormalization of the energy-momentum tensor in three-dimensional scalar SU(N) theories using the Wilson flow
in Physical Review D
Del Debbio L
(2016)
Large volumes and spectroscopy of walking theories
in Physical Review D
Desmond H
(2021)
Five percent measurement of the gravitational constant in the Large Magellanic Cloud
in Physical Review D
Desmond H
(2022)
Catalogues of voids as antihaloes in the local Universe
in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
Description | In December 2009, the STFC Facility, DiRAC, was established to provide distributed High Performance Computing (HPC) services for theoretical modelling and HPC-based research in particle physics, astronomy and cosmology. DiRAC provides a variety of computer architectures, matching machine architecture to the algorithm design and requirements of the research problems to be solved. This grant funds the continued operation of the 1.3Pflop/s Blue Gene/Q system at the University of Edinburgh, which was co-developed by Peter Boyle (University of Edinburgh) and IBM to run with high energy efficiency for months at a time on a single problem to solve some of the most complex problems in physics, particularly the strong interactions of quarks and gluons. The DiRAC Facility supports over 250 active researchers at 27 UK HEIs. This includes the research projects of 100 funded research staff (PDRAs and Research Fellows), over 50 post-graduate projects, and £1.6M of funded research grants. |
Exploitation Route | Theoretical results obtained input to a range of experimental programmes aiming to increase our understanding of Nature. Algorithms and software developed provide input to computer design. |
Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software) |
URL | http://dirac.ac.uk/ |
Description | Intel IPAG QCD codesign project |
Organisation | Intel Corporation |
Department | Intel Corporation (Jones Farm) |
Country | United States |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | We have collaborated with Intel corporation since 2014 with $720k of total direct funding, starting initially as an Intel parallel computing centre, and expanding to direct close collaboration with Intel Pathfinding and Architecture Group. |
Collaborator Contribution | We have performed detailed optimisation of QCD codes (Wilson, Domain Wall, Staggered) on Intel many core architectures. We have investigated the memory system and interconnect performance, particularly on Intel's latest interconnect hardware called Omnipath. We found serious performance issues and worked with Intel to plan a solution and this has been verified and is available as beta software. It will reach general availability in the Intel MPI 2019 release, and allow threaded concurrent communications in MPI for the first time. A joint paper on the resolution to this was written with the Intel MPI team, and the application of the same QCD programming techniques to machine learning gradient reduction was applied in the paper to the Baidu Research all reduce library, demonstrating a 10x gain for this critical step in machine learning in clustered environments. We are also working with Intel verifying future architectures that will deliver the exascale performance in 2021. |
Impact | We have performed detailed optimisation of QCD codes (Wilson, Domain Wall, Staggered) on Intel many core architectures. We have investigated the memory system and interconnect performance, particularly on Intel's latest interconnect hardware called Omnipath. We found serious performance issues and worked with Intel to plan a solution and this has been verified and is available as beta software. It will reach general availability in the Intel MPI 2019 release, and allow threaded concurrent communications in MPI for the first time. A joint paper on the resolution to this was written with the Intel MPI team, and the application of the same QCD programming techniques to machine learning gradient reduction was applied in the paper to the Baidu Research all reduce library, demonstrating a 10x gain for this critical step in machine learning in clustered environments. This collaboration has been renewed annually in 2018, 2019, 2020. Two DiRAC RSE's were hired by Intel to work on the Turing collaboration. |
Start Year | 2016 |