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Printer FriendlyContact: Jim Keller, IBM, (914) 766-3250, bisons1@vnet.ibm.com
Elizabeth Albrycht, TSI for IBM, (408) 280-6000 ext.207, ealbrycht@ca.tsipr.com
Dawn White, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, (509)375-3688,
dawn.white@pnl.gov
IBM RISC Supercomputer Will Provide Solutions to Critical Environmental Cleanup Problems
RICHLAND, Wash., March 6 . . . IBM announced today that a new molecular sciences laboratory in Washington state has placed an order for what will be the most powerful IBM parallel computer ever. The 472-processor RS/6000* Scalable POWERparallel Systems* (SP*) -- an IBM parallel processing supercomputer -- has been purchased by the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
The multi-million dollar system will form the cornerstone of the EMSL's molecular science computing facility, and will be used primarily for research on critical environmental problems such as cleaning up polluted sites and safely treating and storing radioactive waste.
Computational simulations and modeling performed on the new computer will further molecular-level understanding of the physical, chemical and biological processes that underlie environmental remediation, waste processing and related health and ecological effects.
When fully installed in the spring of 1997, the EMSL's supercomputer system will be the most powerful RS/6000 SP in the world, with the capacity to operate at over 200 peak GigaFLOPS (billions of floating-point operations per second).
"The IBM RS/6000 SP will be the EMSL's primary high-performance production computing system," said Ray Bair, deputy director of computing and information sciences at the EMSL. "It will enable EMSL researchers to perform environmental molecular science research that is essential to cleaning up the environment faster and more cost effectively.
For example, large-scale computational chemistry calculations will be used to aid in the design of new materials. These calculations will help design compounds to separate radionuclides from other wastes, engineer enzymes to enhance the biodegradation of organic wastes and develop new materials to contain radioactive wastes for short and long term storage."
"The scalable parallel processing power of the RS/6000 SP system will allow us to tackle the full range of scientific research areas important to the DOE's environmental goals," added Robert Eades, manager of the molecular science computing facility in the EMSL. "EMSL scientists will be able to model the migration of contaminants below ground, on the earth's surface and in the air. Computations can predict the fate of those contaminants, and simulations can help in the design and execution of any required remedial actions. This system also will be used in chemical process modeling -- to minimize the construction and operational costs in facilities built to treat the DOE's legacy of stored wastes -- and to maximize worker safety."
EMSL scientists are developing a new generation of molecular modeling software, such as NWChem and ECCE', to take full advantage of the parallel computing power of the RS/6000 SP system. NWChem will provide users with an order of magnitude more computing capability than is currently available on conventional supercomputers. ECCE' integrates NWChem and other codes into a seamless user environment so scientists can perform complex molecular modeling and simulation tasks on the RS/6000 SP system from their desktop workstations.
"With the IBM RS/6000 SP system as the workhorse of their new Molecular Science Computing Facility, the scope of research that will be conducted at the EMSL over the next few years will have a tremendous impact in developing an effective science-based strategy for addressing the nation's environmental problems," said Mark Bregman, general manager, IBM RS/6000 Division. "High-performance computing and simulation dramatically reduce how long it takes to solve critical research problems. It enables researchers to better focus their experimental studies and extend the range of problems that can be solved."
The computer system will be delivered to the EMSL's molecular science computing facility in two phases. In June 1996, IBM will install a current-generation RS/6000 SP system with 192 application processors, 27 gigabytes (GB) of memory, and 566 GB of disk storage. In March 1997, IBM will then install the final system -- a next-generation RS/6000 SP system with 432 application processors plus 40 more processors driving the parallel disk system and network connections. This system will have 62 GB of memory and 1,238 GB of disk storage.
IBM's Serial Storage Architecture (SSA) disk arrays and Magstar removable tape will comprise the high-performance data storage subsystem for the RS/6000 SP. The RS/6000 SP system will connect to the EMSL's existing HIPPI and ATM networks to provide a truly open systems implementation. Combined, these technologies will provide a state-of-the-art system that will be both expandable and upgradeable as newer technologies are introduced.
Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory
The EMSL is a new research laboratory being constructed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. EMSL's primary mission is to developing an understanding of the fundamental molecular processes required to develop efficient and cost-effective technologies to remediate, process and provide long-term storage of hazardous wastes at DOE sites.
Once finished in the fall of 1997, the EMSL will be a world-class environmental molecular science research facility. It has been designed as a collaborative user facility. As such, the EMSL facilities will serve both the resident research staff and external collaborating scientists from universities, industry and other government laboratories.
The entire EMSL has been designed to take advantage of distributed and collaborative computing. Powerful workstations on researchers' desktops will be networked to workgroup servers and the Molecular Science Computing Facility systems -- the IBM RS/6000 SP, a 20+ terabyte scientific data archival/storage system, and a graphics/visualization laboratory.
Research conducted at the EMSL is also expected to lead to advances in energy, new materials, health and medicine and agriculture.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland and Sequim, Washington, is one of the nine DOE national, multiprogram laboratories. Battelle Memorial Institute of Columbus, Ohio, operates the facility for the DOE. Pacific Northwest's core mission is to deliver environmental science and technology to meet key national needs. The lab also applies its capabilities to meet critical energy, health and national security needs, and makes contributions to America's economy and to the education of future scientists and engineers.
Editor's Note: Additional information on the Environmental Molecular
Sciences Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Battelle
Memorial Institute, and the U.S. Department of Energy is available
via the Pacific Northwest Home Page at http://www.pnl.gov/
IBM news releases are available on the Internet, via the IBM Home
Page available through web browsers at http://www.ibm.com.
Additional information on the RS/6000 and related products is available
through the World Wide Web on the Internet. To access, open the
following URL: http://www.rs6000.ibm.com
The IBM Fax Information Service allows you to receive facsimiles
of prior IBM product press releases. Simply dial 1-800-IBM-4FAX
and enter "99" at the voice menu.
* Indicates trademark or registered trademark of International
Business Machines Corporation.
** UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other
countries, licensed exclusively through X/Open Company Limited.
IBM AIX Version 3.2.5 and IBM AIX 4.1 for the IBM RS/6000 family
of systems are branded X/Open UNIX 93.
Fax Code:2
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