Today at the High-Per­for­mance Com­pu­ting Cen­ter of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Stutt­gart (HLRS), Baden-Würt­tem­berg Prime Minis­ter Win­fried Kret­sch­mann, Par­lia­men­ta­ry Sta­te Secre­ta­ry in the Fede­ral Minis­try for Edu­ca­ti­on and Rese­arch Micha­el Meis­ter, and Baden-Würt­tem­berg Sci­ence Minis­ter The­re­sia Bau­er joi­n­ed in a cerem­o­ny mar­king the begin­ning of ope­ra­ti­on of HLRS’s new super­com­pu­ter, cal­led “Hawk.” With a peak per­for­mance of appro­xi­m­ate­ly 26 Peta­flops (26 tril­li­on floa­ting point ope­ra­ti­ons per second), Hawk — an Apol­lo 9000 Sys­tem from Hew­lett Packard Enter­pri­se (HPE) — is among the fas­test super­com­pu­ters world­wi­de and the fas­test gene­ral pur­po­se sys­tem for sci­en­ti­fic and indus­tri­al com­pu­ting in Europe.

A cen­tral loca­ti­on for cut­ting-edge research 

Hawk will play a cen­tral role in the Ger­man natio­nal and Sta­te of Baden-Würt­tem­berg high-per­for­mance com­pu­ting stra­te­gies. Its inau­gu­ra­ti­on marks the begin­ning of a new era for rese­arch in the com­pu­ta­tio­nal sci­en­ces, simu­la­ti­on, and arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence in Ger­ma­ny and Baden-Würt­tem­berg, par­ti­cu­lar­ly with regard to their appli­ca­ti­ons in engineering.

As Par­lia­men­ta­ry Sta­te Secre­ta­ry Dr. Micha­el Meis­ter explai­ned, “Com­pu­ters like Hawk are tools for advan­ced rese­arch in the sci­en­ces and in indus­try. They enable excel­lent sci­ence and inno­va­ti­on, and soli­di­fy Germany’s inter­na­tio­nal posi­ti­on as a top loca­ti­on for super­com­pu­ting. High-per­for­mance com­pu­ters also con­tri­bu­te to tech­no­lo­gi­cal sove­reig­n­ty in the digi­tal age. For us, tech­no­lo­gi­cal sove­reig­n­ty means deve­lo­ping our own exper­ti­se in sys­tems and appli­ca­ti­ons that make sci­ence and indus­try com­pe­ti­ti­ve at the hig­hest level. It is only in this way that we can gua­ran­tee a mutual­ly recipro­cal exch­an­ge with lea­ding rese­arch cen­ters and com­pa­nies world­wi­de. Stuttgart’s ‘Hawk’ demons­tra­tes this very cle­ar­ly, becau­se wit­hout the clo­se coope­ra­ti­on bet­ween com­pu­ting cen­ter and manu­fac­tu­rer, a sys­tem of this cali­ber would never have been possible.”

Prime Minis­ter Win­fried Kret­sch­mann explai­ned, “With Hawk we can sup­port key indus­tries in the sta­te of Baden-Würt­tem­berg, enab­ling fields like mobi­li­ty, mecha­ni­cal engi­nee­ring, and health to take advan­ta­ge of new oppor­tu­ni­ties using simu­la­ti­on. One of the fas­test com­pu­ters loca­ted at a public insti­tu­ti­on world­wi­de that is also open for indus­tri­al usa­ge is a smart invest­ment in our future as a loca­ti­on for sci­ence and indus­try. Addi­tio­nal­ly, it offers gre­at pro­mi­se for cli­ma­te simu­la­ti­on. HLRS’s work is not only of enorm­ous importance for Baden-Würt­tem­berg: Hawk also streng­thens Germany’s natio­nal super­com­pu­ting infra­struc­tu­re, as well as that of Euro­pe, as HLRS is con­tri­bu­ting to the deve­lo­p­ment of four of ten Euro­pean cen­ters of excellence.”

Prof. Wolf­ram Res­sel, Rec­tor of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Stutt­gart, wel­co­med the inau­gu­ra­ti­on of the new super­com­pu­ter: “Hawk expands the Uni­ver­si­ty of Stuttgart’s alre­a­dy excel­lent rese­arch infra­struc­tu­re with an addi­tio­nal flag­ship sys­tem. It will enable cut­ting edge aca­de­mic and indus­tri­al rese­arch in a wide ran­ge of con­texts whe­re simu­la­ti­on and Big Data play important roles. In this way the new high-per­for­mance com­pu­ter also makes an important con­tri­bu­ti­on to rea­li­zing the Uni­ver­si­ty of Stuttgart’s visi­on, ‘Intel­li­gent Sys­tems for a Sus­tainable Society.’ ”

Fun­ding of 38 mil­li­on Euros 

Half of the fun­ding for Hawk — in total, 38 mil­li­on Euros — was pro­vi­ded by the Baden-Würt­tem­berg Minis­try for Sci­ence, Rese­arch, and Art in con­junc­tion with its high-per­for­mance computing/data inten­si­ve com­pu­ting (HPC/DIC) stra­tegy. The second half was pro­vi­ded by the Fede­ral Minis­try for Edu­ca­ti­on and Rese­arch in the con­text of the SiVe­GCS pro­ject. Finan­cing was faci­li­ta­ted by the Gauss Cent­re for Super­com­pu­ting (GCS), the alli­ance of Germany’s three natio­nal super­com­pu­ting centers.

New oppor­tu­ni­ties for rese­arch and industry 

With a peak per­for­mance that is 3.5 times fas­ter than HLRS’s pre­vious flag­ship com­pu­ting sys­tem — Hazel Hen — Hawk will open up com­ple­te­ly new aca­de­mic and indus­tri­al appli­ca­ti­on are­as and empower sci­en­tists and engi­neers to con­duct rese­arch on ever lar­ger and more com­plex phenomena.

Among Hawk’s future appli­ca­ti­on are­as are, for exam­p­le, gai­ning new under­stan­ding for opti­mi­zing ener­gy effi­ci­en­cy in wind tur­bi­nes, opti­mi­zing motors and power plants, or impro­ving aero­dy­na­mic per­for­mance in air­craft and auto­mo­bi­le engi­nee­ring. Hawk could, for exam­p­le, for the first time make it pos­si­ble to crea­te a detail­ed simu­la­ti­on of noi­se gene­ra­ti­on for an enti­re air­plane, or cal­cu­la­te the com­plex inter­ac­tions bet­ween glo­bal and regio­nal cli­ma­te models to enable mid-term pre­dic­tions of cli­ma­te chan­ge. More com­pre­hen­si­ve and more com­plex simu­la­ti­ons rela­ted to pan­de­mic rese­arch, the pre­dic­tion of migra­ti­on flows, and other glo­bal chal­lenges will also beco­me pos­si­ble with Hawk.

In addi­ti­on to sup­port­ing aca­de­mic rese­arch, HLRS makes it pos­si­ble for pri­va­te indus­try to access its super­com­pu­ting tech­no­lo­gies. Up to 10% of Hawk’s com­pu­ting time is available to pro­vi­de cru­cial sup­port for the digi­ta­liza­ti­on of indus­try in Baden-Würt­tem­berg and Ger­ma­ny. Curr­ent­ly, more than 40 (pri­ma­ri­ly medi­um-sized) com­pa­nies per­form com­pu­ta­tio­nal rese­arch on HLRS’s sys­tems. In this regard Stutt­gart and the Gauss Cent­re for Super­com­pu­ting stand alo­ne in Europe.

Sci­ence Minis­ter The­re­sia Bau­er expands on this, say­ing, “The con­cept of high-per­for­mance com­pu­ting means rapid deve­lo­p­ment. As quick­ly as the peak per­for­mance of super­com­pu­ters rises, it has an equal­ly decisi­ve impact for cut­ting-edge rese­arch and for the deve­lo­p­ment of inno­va­ti­ve pro­ducts and pro­ces­ses in key sec­tors of our eco­no­my. In all things rela­ted to super­com­pu­ting, Baden-Würt­tem­berg is a Euro­pean lea­der and glo­bal­ly com­pe­ti­ti­ve. Having HLRS as a part of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Stutt­gart is an important part of this. It means that it is not just the impres­si­ve com­pu­ta­tio­nal per­for­mance of the super­com­pu­ter — but also the enti­re metho­do­lo­gi­cal exper­ti­se loca­ted here — that enables our lea­ding com­pu­ta­tio­nal rese­arch to achie­ve breath­ta­king results.”

HLRS and HPE begin new cooperation 

The begin­ning of Hawk’s ope­ra­ti­on also marks the begin­ning of a new col­la­bo­ra­ti­on bet­ween HLRS and HPE to acce­le­ra­te the deve­lo­p­ment of next-gene­ra­ti­on super­com­pu­ting tech­no­lo­gies. Among the topics they plan to address tog­e­ther are the deve­lo­p­ment of new soft­ware and tools for high-per­for­mance com­pu­ting, per­for­mance opti­miza­ti­on, and appli­ca­ti­ons invol­ving arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence. Such tech­no­lo­gies are the spring­board for the next level of super­com­pu­ter per­for­mance — cal­led exas­ca­le com­pu­ting — which will beco­me a rea­li­ty in the coming years.

About the High-Per­for­mance Com­pu­ting Cen­ter Stuttgart 

The High-Per­for­mance Com­pu­ting Cen­ter Stutt­gart was estab­lished in 1996 as the first Ger­man natio­nal high-per­for­mance com­pu­ting cen­ter, buil­ding on a tra­di­ti­on of super­com­pu­ting at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Stutt­gart that stret­ches back to 1959. As a rese­arch insti­tu­ti­on affi­lia­ted with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Stutt­gart and a foun­ding mem­ber of the Gauss Cent­re for Super­com­pu­ting — the alli­ance of Germany’s three natio­nal super­com­pu­ting cen­ters — HLRS pro­vi­des sta­te-of-the-art HPC ser­vices to aca­de­mic users and indus­try. HLRS ope­ra­tes one of Europe’s most powerful super­com­pu­ters, pro­vi­des advan­ced trai­ning in HPC pro­gramming and simu­la­ti­on, and con­ducts rese­arch to address key pro­blems facing the future of super­com­pu­ting. Among HLRS’s are­as of exper­ti­se are par­al­lel pro­gramming, nume­ri­cal methods for HPC, visua­liza­ti­on, grid and cloud com­pu­ting con­cepts, data ana­ly­tics, and arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence. Users of HLRS com­pu­ting sys­tems are acti­ve across a wide ran­ge of disci­pli­nes, with an empha­sis on com­pu­ta­tio­nal engi­nee­ring and appli­ed science.

More infor­ma­ti­on about Hawk:
https://www.hlrs.de/systems/hpe-apollo-9000-hawk/

Cont­act for tech­ni­cal questions:
Prof. Dr. Micha­el Resch, Uni­ver­si­tät Stutt­gart, Höchst­leis­tungs­re­chen­zen­trum (HLRS), Tel.: +49 (0) 711 / 685–87200, E‑Mail michael.resch@hlrs.de