University of Texas beefs up supercomputing
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The University of Texas has begun installing the nation's largest academic supercomputer at a new facility near Round Rock.
Why it matters: UT officials hope Horizon, as the computer with massive artificial intelligence capabilities is known, will help with breakthroughs in physics, climate science, medicine and energy.
Catch up quick: Last year, UT won a four-year, $457 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to underwrite the construction of a new computing center — known as a leadership-class computing facility.
The intrigue: Computing officials worried that the Trump administration's planned cuts to the NSF would halt the project, but they now say it's full steam ahead.
- The facility will begin operations next year, powered by computers with 10 times the performance power for simulations of current best-in-class supercomputers — and 100 times the power for AI applications.
- It's been developed in collaboration with Dell Technologies and chip designer Nvidia, along with data storage and computer application firms Vast Data, Spectra Logic, Versity and Sabey Data Centers.
Between the lines: Amid concerns about the vast amount of energy required by computing and data centers, UT officials say Horizon will be six times more efficient than other supercomputers.
What they're saying: Horizon has "groundbreaking capabilities, particularly in the use of AI for scientific innovation," Dan Stanzione, executive director of the Texas Advanced Computing Center, said in a statement.
Zoom out: The new center comes as UT continues to position itself as a computing leader.
- UT's Center for Generative AI recently announced it's doubling its computing capacity, to help speed research in vaccines, advanced medical imaging, personalized medicine and more accurate computer processing of human language.
- "The scale of the cluster will allow us to create solutions to bigger real-world problems that make a difference in people's lives," Adam Klivans, director of the UT-led National Science Foundation Institute for Foundations of Machine Learning said in a statement.