Tohoku University orders Supercomputer System from Fujitsu

The Institute of Fluid Science at Tohoku University has placed an order for a new Supercomputer System from Fujitsu. Through deployment and operation of the system, which is planned to deliver a peak theoretical performance of over 2.7 petaflops, Fujitsu will support the institute in the advancement of its research into the phenomena of fluids in a variety of fields.

The Institute of Fluid Science has contributed to the development of fluid science in a variety of fields — including clarifying the flow of blood through the body and controlling plasma flow in semiconductor manufacturing — using a next-generation integrated research method that unites creative experimental research with supercomputer-based computational research.

Now, the institute is upgrading and improving the performance of its core equipment in order to further enhance its fluid science research in fields such as health, welfare and medicine, the environment and energy, aerospace and manufacturing. Fujitsu received the order for the Supercomputer System based on a proposal that combined software-based virtualisation technology with a large-scale computational system that utilises the technology Fujitsu has cultivated through HPC development.

The system comprises a core supercomputer with three computation systems, including two shared-memory parallel computation systems, which can use large capacity memory space, and one distributed-memory parallel computation system, which can execute large-scale parallel programs. It also has a login server and application and remote graphics server, as well as software and a variety of subsystems for tasks such as visualisation and storage.

The three computation systems in the core supercomputer will consist of Fujitsu’s latest PRIMERGY x86 servers, which are planned to deliver the distributed-memory parallel computation system’s theoretical peak performance in excess of 2.7 petaflops. In addition, by employing a water cooling model, the system will also offer high energy efficiency.

The Supercomputer System will be deployed to the Institute of Fluid Science’s Advanced Fluid Information Research Center, with plans to begin operations in fiscal year 2018.

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