(Press-News.org) The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science today announced a new research and development opportunity led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to advance technologies and drive new capabilities for future supercomputers. This industry research program worth $23 million, called New Frontiers, will initiate partnerships with multiple companies to accelerate the R&D of critical technologies with renewed emphasis on energy efficiency for the next generation of post-exascale computing in the 2029 and beyond time frame.
“There is a growing consensus that urgent action is needed to address an array of bottlenecks in advanced computing, including energy efficiency, advanced memory, interconnects, and programmability to maintain economic leadership and national security,” said Ceren Susut, associate director of DOE’s Office of Science for Advanced Scientific Computing Research. “Through the Exascale Computing Project, we partnered with industry to provide critical advances for the nation, but much more work remains to be done and the opportunities and challenges of AI underscore the need for continued government investment.”
High-performance computing, or HPC, and data-driven modeling and simulation are used extensively to advance DOE science missions and are key investment areas for the Office of Science (SC). In fact, SC is home to three of the top 10 fastest supercomputers in the world, all used for open scientific research, including the world’s first and second fastest systems according to the June 2024 TOP500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers. These systems include the 1.206 exaflops HPE Cray EX Frontier at ORNL; the 1.012 exaflops HPE Cray EX-Intel Aurora at Argonne National Laboratory; and the 148.6 petaflops IBM AC922 Summit at ORNL.
But the HPC landscape is quickly changing and evolving. New Frontiers provides an opportunity to address and rapidly adapt to those changes.
“With Dennard scaling long dead and the slowing of Moore’s law, we’re seeing technologies critical to HPC consuming more power that partially offset increases in application performance due to improvements in silicon process nodes and improved packaging techniques,” said ORNL’s Christopher Zimmer, New Frontiers project director. “Current technology trends threaten to have a disruptive and costly impact on the development of DOE applications and potentially a negative impact on the productivity of DOE scientists.”
For technologies targeted for productization in the 5- to 10-year timeframe, industry leaders have noted that processors cannot get faster without producing more heat, per Dennard scaling, and computer chips likely cannot get much smaller, according to Moore’s Law. The New Frontiers project’s strategic R&D investment and innovative vendor engagement opportunities will accelerate development of technologies needed for the next generation of exascale computing within these new realities.
“New Frontiers will be exploring technologies to improve energy efficient computing,” said ORNL’s Al Geist, director of the Frontier project. “Energy efficiency is becoming critical to building future generations of leadership-scale computers and will involve development of new approaches to hardware, software, and application algorithms."
New Frontiers will push strategic advancements in HPC in the exascale era, which will be essential in helping DOE maintain leadership and to address the future challenges in science, energy, health, and growing security threats. The science potential of emerging computing systems and other novel computing architectures will require numerous significant modifications to today’s tools and techniques to deliver on the promise of science.
Through this request for proposal, or RFP, the ORNL-led team is soliciting innovative R&D proposals in the areas of hardware technologies, software technologies, and cross-cutting technologies.
Because of the emphasis on extreme-scale application workflows, overall time to solution is also an important consideration. The focus of this program will be on open-source and sustainable software technologies for extreme scale HPC systems and the development of techniques necessary to support emerging workloads of integrated facilities across the DOE landscape.
“New Frontiers comes at a critical moment in high-performance computing,” said Ashley Barker, Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility program director and Exascale Computing Project deputy director at ORNL. “We have an exciting opportunity to take advantage of the incredible portfolio of applications and technologies created and enabled by the Exascale Computing Project. With New Frontiers, we want to translate those advancements to benefit next-generation systems.”
New Frontiers seeks to fund new and/or accelerated R&D of technologies targeted for productization in the 5- to 10-year timeframe and includes a 40% cost share option. The period of performance for any subcontract resulting from this RFP will be two years.
The RFP is being managed by UT-Battelle LLC, which operates ORNL on behalf of the DOE.
Funding for the RFP is being provided by the DOE Office of Science’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research Program.
The full New Frontiers RFP can be found at https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/newfrontiers/.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE’s Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit energy.gov/science.
END
DOE, ORNL announce opportunity to define future of high-performance computing
2024-09-06
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Molecular simulations, supercomputing lead to energy-saving biomaterials breakthrough
2024-09-06
A team led by scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory identified and successfully demonstrated a new method to process a plant-based material called nanocellulose that reduced energy needs by a whopping 21%. The approach was discovered using molecular simulations run on the lab’s supercomputers, followed by pilot testing and analysis.
The method, leveraging a solvent of sodium hydroxide and urea in water, can significantly lower the production cost of nanocellulosic fiber — a strong, lightweight biomaterial ideal as a ...
Low-impact yoga and exercise found to help older women manage urinary incontinence
2024-09-06
Older women struggling with urinary incontinence can benefit from regular, low-impact exercise, with yoga as well as stretching and strengthening showing benefits in a new study published Aug. 27 in Annals of Internal Medicine.
The research, led by scientists at Stanford Medicine and the University of California, San Francisco, is part of a larger effort to identify low-risk, low-cost ways to treat one of the most common health problems women face as they age.
After 12 weeks of a low-impact yoga program, study participants had about 65% fewer episodes of incontinence. Women in a control group doing stretching and strengthening exercises ...
Genetic studies reveal new insights into cognitive impairment in schizophrenia
2024-09-06
In a comprehensive review of recent genetic and population studies, published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Genomic Psychiatry (Genomic Press, New York), Professors Michael Owen and Michael O'Donovan of Cardiff University's Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics present evidence that challenges conventional wisdom about cognitive deficits in schizophrenia. Their analysis reveals that premorbid cognitive impairment – lower IQ and other cognitive deficits present before the onset of psychosis – is largely explained by non-familial factors rather than by the same inherited genetic variants that ...
Researcher develops technology to provide cleaner energy and cleaner water
2024-09-06
As the world transitions to cleaner energy sources, the need for energy-relevant metals and critical minerals has surged dramatically. Driven by the rise of electric vehicles and other green technologies, these essential materials are in high demand across the globe.
Metals, such as lithium, cannot be grown. They must be mined or recycled, making this a top priority for researchers in the mining industry. Traditional methods of mining lithium are expensive and can be harmful to the environment, but researchers at Virginia Tech have found a way to minimize this environment impact. They will optimize and scale up this method with ...
Expect the unexpected: nanoscale silver unveils intrinsic self-healing abilities
2024-09-06
As an innovative concept in materials science and engineering, the inspiration of self-healing materials comes from living organisms that have the innate ability to self-heal. Along with this line, the search for self-healing materials has been generally focused on “soft” materials like polymers and hydrogels. For solid-state metals instead, one may intuitively imagine that any form of self-healing will be much more difficult to achieve.
While a few past studies showcased the self-healing behavior in metals that more or less requires the assistance ...
nTIDE September 2024 Jobs Report: Gains in employment for people with disabilities appear to level off after reducing gaps with non-disabled workers
2024-09-06
East Hanover, NJ – September 6, 2024 – Employment and labor force participation trends for people with disabilities appear to be stabilizing after several years of growth that reduced the gaps between individuals with and without disabilities, according to today’s National Trends in Disability Employment – semi-monthly update (nTIDE) issued by Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability (UNH-IOD).
Over the past three months, both groups have seen declines in employment and labor force participation, reflecting a broader workforce ...
Wiley enhances NMR Spectral Library Collection with extensive new databases
2024-09-06
Wiley, one of the world’s largest publishers and a global leader in research and learning, today announced the addition of ten computed CNMR databases totaling over 384,000 records to its KnowItAll NMR Spectral Library collection. With this addition, the KnowItAll NMR collection now provides access to over 1.3 million spectra, making it one of the most comprehensive collections of NMR spectral data available.
“These new databases significantly enhance our ability to support researchers in their quest ...
Renowned psychiatrist Dr. Gustavo Turecki sheds light on depression, suicide, and brain trauma response
2024-09-06
Montreal, Canada - The "Innovators & Ideas: Research Leader" section of Genomic Psychiatry (ISSN: 2997-2388), published by Genomic Press, New York, features an illuminating Genomic Press Interview with Dr. Gustavo Turecki, a trailblazer in psychiatric research at McGill University. The interview delves into Turecki's pioneering work on depression, suicide prevention, and the molecular underpinnings of mental health, offering valuable insights into cutting-edge research shaping our understanding of these critical issues.
Dr. Turecki, who serves as the Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at McGill ...
Plasmonic modulators could enable high-capacity space communication
2024-09-06
Researchers have achieved data rates as high as 424Gbit/s across a 53-km turbulent free-space optical link using plasmonic modulators— devices that uses special light waves called surface plasmon polaritons to control and change optical signals. The new research lays the groundwork for high-speed optical communication links that transmit data over open air or space.
Free-space-optical communication networks could aid space exploration because they can provide high-speed, high-capacity data transmission with lower latency and less interference than traditional radio frequency communication systems. ...
UPenn’s Orphan Disease Center to amplify SYNGAP1 research: SynGAP Research Fund’s Million Dollar Bike Ride team raises $74,851 for one-year grant
2024-09-06
Mill Valley, CA – September 5, 2024 – The SynGAP Research Fund 501(c)(3) is proud to announce its continued collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania’s (UPenn) Orphan Disease Center (ODC) through the Million Dollar Bike Ride (MDBR) Pilot Grant Program. ODC is accepting proposals for a grant award of $74,851 to further advance critical research in SYNGAP1-Related Disorders (SRD). Instructions for submitting a letter of interest are available here. Applications are due in two weeks by September 20, 2024.
Why We Participate in This Project
The SynGAP Research ...