CORE LAB
Building knowledge and collaboration
Unlimited possibility and discovery
KSL are partnering around the globe to run increasingly complex
scientific and commercial applications. Research partnerships span
a wide variety of institutions, including:
Through the partnership of KAUST and IBM, the scientific
community and the business world begin a new era of supercomputing; this powerful collaboration gives birth to unlimited
possibility, as well as new discoveries and innovations to inspire
the next generation. The capabilities of ‘Shaheen’ offer a unique
opportunity to leverage its power and capability for high-end,
computing intensive projects.
•
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
•
London’s Imperial College
•
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
•
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
•
Institut Français du Pétrole
•
National University of Singapore
•
The American University in Cairo
•
Technische Universität München
•
King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology
•
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals
•
Saudi Aramco
•
Schlumberger
For more information on ‘Shaheen’, KAUST Supercomputing
Laboratory, and the KAUST-IBM Center for Deep Computing
Research, please e-mail us at [email protected],
or visit our website at:
http://www.kaust.edu.sa/research/labs/supercomputing.html
KAUST
SUPERCOMPUTING
Laboratory
Through the partnership of KAUST and IBM, ‘Shaheen’ will join
the ranks of the top capability machines in the world supporting
global scientific research and collaboration.
“ F rom the outset, we have been
determined that KAUST will be a major
new resource in the global scientific
community. As a scientist myself, I can
tell you that the ‘Shaheen’ supercomputer
is a tangible and outstanding example
of our commitment to advancing
science,” said Professor Choon Fong
Shih, KAUST’s President. “With IBM,
which is the preeminent provider and
innovator in supercomputing today,
KAUST is truly driving inquiry and
discovery, and catalyzing Saudi Arabia’s
human and economic potential.”
www.kaust.edu.sa
www.kaust.edu.sa
A Shaheen, the Arabic name for a peregrine falcon, is a very fast bird that reaches speeds of up to 112 km/h
(69mph) in level flight. During its spectacular hunting swoop from heights of over 1000m, the Shaheen may
reach speeds of 320km/h (200mph) as it dives on its prey.
Saudi Arabia challenges IT collaboration
with Shaheen
King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST)
in Saudi Arabia, together with IBM, have built a supercomputer
that is the most powerful, energy efficient computer in the
Middle East and No. 14 in the world (as of June 2009).
‘Shaheen’ at KAUST is the first in a series of High-Performance
Computing (HPC) systems that will eventually reach exascale
performance. In simple terms, petascale and exascale speeds
equate to a quadrillion (15 zeros) or quintillion (18 zeros)
calculations per second respectively. At the heart of ‘Shaheen’
is a 16-rack IBM® Blue Gene®/P system, housing 65,536
processor cores capable of delivering up to 222 TFLOPS (or
222 trillion calculations per second).
“Deep Computing combines the best of business and scientific computing techniques to find the value
buried in all this data and to apply that information to solve real-world problems. Thanks to the tremendous
advances in computing power and mathematical algorithms, it’s now possible to tackle problems of
unbelievable complexity—things we couldn’t dream of doing even a few years ago.
Furthermore, e-business is creating new opportunities for companies to turn massive quantities of
data into competitive intelligence and knowledge - that’s where Deep Computing comes in. Whilst
supercomputers historically have been focused primarily on scientific computing, the majority of the
world’s 500 largest supercomputer sites today are housed in commercial locations.“
Mission
To enable scientific, economic and social advances through
development and application of high-performance computing
solutions, through collaboration with KAUST researchers
and partners as well as through provision of world-class
computational systems and services.
KAUST enables breakthrough science
Saudi Arabia is dedicated to becoming a knowledge-based
economy, inspiring a new age of scientific and economic
achievement. With the computing power of ‘Shaheen’, KAUST
students, researchers, scientists, businesses, industrial partners,
and other learning institutions will have access to huge
supercomputing power and capacity on campus at KAUST.
KAUST will research science and technology issues existing
in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the region and the world to
find solutions to the problems associated with human needs,
social advancement and economic development.
— William R. Pulleyblank, Ph.D.
Director of Mathematical Sciences at IBM Research
KAUST Supercomputing Laboratory
Vision
and the KAUST-IBM Center for Deep Computing Research At
the KAUST Supercomputing Laboratory (KSL), which incorporates
the KAUST-IBM Center for Deep Computing Research (CDCR),
KAUST and IBM invite experts in academia and industry to
stretch the boundaries of High-Performance Computing (HPC)
and Deep Computing by leveraging Shaheen’s capabilities to:
KSL will be a global leader in the exploitation of
high-performance computing to realize scientific advancement,
social development and economic growth for the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia and for the world.
•
Accelerate discovery
•
Compile intensive workloads and massive data sets
•
Increase the rate of exploration and production
•
Access multiple data sources for complex analyses
Shaheen soars into service
KSL offers access to Shaheen to accelerate new uses of
supercomputing technology into areas previously limited by
cost, knowledge or imagination:
•
High-performance computing (HPC) support
•
Collaboration on HPC:
Shaheen potential tops 500 TFLOPS
•
Applications
Using IBM® Blue Gene®/P technology, the ‘Shaheen’ system
is configured to deliver continuous performance in excess of
200 TFLOPS. This is a performance level that is 20,000 times
more powerful than a laptop PC; and it would exceed the
performance of a stack of laptop computers over a quarter
mile high. IBM® Blue Gene®/P technology can be scaled to
over 3 PFLOPS (3 quadrillion calculations per second) - a
performance level that many thought unattainable only a few
short years ago. The elements of the ‘Shaheen’ system are
connected to a common network backbone that is accessible
from the KAUST campus in Saudi Arabia and via the Internet.
•
Middleware
•
Algorithm support
Shaheen computing power offers users:
•
Ultra-scalability and storage
•
High inter-processor communications
•
Multiple low-latency networks
•
Familiar programming models
•
Vast memory bandwidth for data
intensive applications
•
Application support to develop, port and
scale applications
•
HPC program best practices
•
Participation on research projects
•
HPC training on:
•
Systems management
•
Programming
•
Applications tuning
•
Algorithms
www.kaust.edu.sa