U of M to benefit from investment in high-performance computing
New funding will give U of M access to powerful research tools
MICHAEL OLSON STAFF
Researchers at the University of Manitoba will soon benefit from the very first pan- Canadian high-performance computing (HPC) resource, a tool that will help deliver greater access to technology and research opportunities.
High-performance computing uses clusters of super-computers to analyze tetrabytes of scientific data and analyze complicated equations — that would take years to complete on a normal computer — in only days or even hours.
The U of M is a partner in WestGrid, one of seven major HPC consortia in Canada. Together, these seven consortia are striving to create a cross- Canada network of HPC facilities, into which an $88-million investment was announced in Toronto on Dec. 21, 2006. The investment for HPC is also expected to be equalled by provincial and industry sources to help the funding total more than $180 million.
“It gives all the researchers at the U of M access to equipment which they would not otherwise have access to,” said Byron Southern of the department of physics and astronomy at the U of M.
The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), an independent corporation that works on funding research infrastructure throughout the country, provided $78 million of the $88 million.
“This represents a major leap forward for Canada’s HPC community,” said Eliot Phillipson, president and CEO of the CFI, in a CFI press release. “This investment will provide researchers with the tools to solve large-scale computational problems that we could not even have imagined tackling 10 years ago.”
The remaining $10 million of funding came from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and will be awarded over five years.
“High-performance computing is a critical tool in many areas of NSERC-funded research,” said Michael Dwyer, media and public affairs officer for NSERC. “Astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, engineering — there’s all kinds of areas where high-performance computing is a critical factor.”
NSERC is a federal agency that supports over 22,000 university students and postdoctoral fellows in advanced studies as well as funds over 10,000 university professors each year. The agency awarded more than 100 scholarships and grants to researchers at the U of M in 2006-07.
The U of M officially joined WestGrid in April 2006 along with the six of the other newest members: the Univeresity of Victoria, the University of Northern British Columbia, Athabasca University, the University of Saskatchewan, the University of Regina, the University of Winnipeg and Brandon University.
According to the WestGrid website, planning is underway to provide all of these institutions with WestGrid facilities.
WestGrid is a $50-million project promoting HPC collaboration and visualization infrastructure throughout Western Canada. It is made up of 14 partner institutions across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, and is Canada’s largest highperformance computing consortium.
WestGrid’s stated goal is that via grid computing, Canada will emerge as a greater global economic strength and be more in tune with the corporate world.
Grid computing refers to computers that are geographically separate but are able to function together as one mega-computer. Through grid computing, people are able to tap into the processing power of other computers across the world.
“This infrastructure is now available to everyone,” said Southern.
The U of M Information Services Technology department will be offering a series of of free courses on HPC this spring. Since 2001, U of M researchers have been able, through a partnership between the federal and provincial governments and Sun Microcomputers, to access Polaris, a system that uses 24 computers.
