Unleashing the Power of Exascale Computing: Genci's 2022 Activity Report
We are thrilled to present the highly anticipated activity report of Genci for the year 2022.
As a leading organization responsible for providing powerful computational and data processing resources, Genci has been instrumental in driving scientific research and innovation at both the national and European levels.
With a mission to promote the use of supercomputing coupled with artificial intelligence, Genci has made significant strides in benefitting scientific research communities, academia, and industrial sectors. Join us as we explore the remarkable achievements showcased in this 68-page report.
Launching Innovative Programs and Initiatives:
Genci’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of computational capabilities is evident through the launch of several groundbreaking programs and initiatives. The report highlights key projects, such as:
- NumPEx: The NumPEx initiative aims to harness the power of supercomputing and AI to drive scientific progress. By providing researchers with cutting-edge computational resources, Genci enables them to tackle complex challenges across various scientific domains.
- Jules Verne Consortium for Exascale: Genci’s partnership in the Jules Verne Consortium demonstrates their dedication to advancing exascale computing. This collaboration fosters innovation and propels research in areas that were once unimaginable.
- CLUSSTER Project: The CLUSSTER project focuses on integrating cloud computing solutions into Genci’s infrastructure. By embracing the cloud, Genci enhances flexibility and scalability, enabling researchers to tackle data-intensive workloads with ease.
- New Supercomputer “Adastra”: Genci’s introduction of the state-of-the-art supercomputer “Adastra” marks a significant milestone. With its remarkable computational power, Adastra empowers researchers to tackle complex simulations, accelerate data analysis, and drive scientific breakthroughs.
Driving Quantum Computing Advancements:
Genci recognizes the immense potential of quantum computing and has made significant progress in this field. The report highlights notable achievements, including:
- National Hybrid Quantum Computing Platform: Genci has played a pivotal role in launching of this platform. This initiative fosters collaboration and enables researchers to explore the capabilities of quantum computing in solving real-world problems.
- Integration of Quantum Systems: Genci has acquired its first quantum systems, marking a significant step towards enabling researchers to harness the power of quantum computing. These systems pave the way for groundbreaking research and innovation in quantum-enabled applications.
- The Quantum Package: Genci’s Quantum Package (PAck Quantique) provides researchers with the necessary tools and resources to explore hybrid quantum computing systems. This initiative promotes the development of novel algorithms and applications that bridge classical and quantum computing.
Advancements in Artificial Intelligence:
Genci has embraced the transformative potential of artificial intelligence, as highlighted in the report:
Bloom Model: Genci’s Bloom Model showcases their efforts to develop cutting-edge AI algorithms and frameworks. By combining supercomputing with AI, Genci facilitates breakthrough research in machine learning, deep learning, and data analytics.
Contributing to Scientific Research and Industry:
Genci is dedicated to supporting scientific research communities, academia, and industrial sectors through different initiatives, as exemplified by their efforts in:
- Reusing Waste Heat: Genci’s innovative approach includes the valorization of waste heat generated by the Jean Zay supercomputer. This environmentally friendly initiative showcases Genci’s dedication to sustainability and efficient resource utilization.
- Grands Challenges: Genci actively supports researchers in tackling grand challenges, providing them with the computational resources needed to address complex problems across diverse scientific disciplines.
- Exemplary Simulations: The report presents compelling examples of simulations conducted with Genci’s resources, showcasing the impactful discoveries and advancements made possible through their support.
- Community of Large Industrial Groups: Genci’s collaboration with large industrial groups highlights their commitment to bridging the gap between academia and industry. By fostering partnerships, Genci facilitates the transfer of cutting-edge research and technological advancements into real-world applications.
Genci’s Regional and European Ecosystem:
The report highlights Genci’s active involvement in regional and European initiatives:
- Regional Initiatives: Genci actively contributes to regional development through initiatives like SiMSEO, Competence Center, and MesoNet. These programs encourage cooperation among research institutions and industries, which promotes innovation and contributes to economic growth..
- European Collaborations: Genci’s participation in European collaborations, such as PRACE, EuroHPC, EUPEX, and EPI SGA, underscores their commitment to establishing a strong European ecosystem for high-performance computing. These collaborations facilitate knowledge exchange, resource sharing, and foster a vibrant European research community.
The 2022 Activity Report by Genci demonstrates their commitment to empowering scientific research and driving innovation by integrating exascale computing, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing.
Through the launch of groundbreaking programs, the introduction of cutting-edge technologies, and collaborations with research communities and industry, Genci has made significant contributions to advancing scientific frontiers.
Their commitment to sustainable practices and regional and European partnerships further solidifies their position as a leading provider of computational resources.
As we look to the future, Genci continues to pave the way for transformative discoveries and breakthroughs in scientific research and technological innovation.
The French and Dutch governments welcome the decision of the EuroHPC joint venture to host and operate a new European Exascale supercomputer in France
The European joint venture EuroHPC announces today that it has selected, for the future European supercomputer Exascale, the project carried out in France by the Jules Verne consortium, which brings together France, represented by the Large National Equipment for Intensive Calculation (GENCI) as hosting entity, in collaboration with the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) as the hosting site, and the Netherlands, represented by SURF, the Dutch National Supercomputing Center.
After being acquired by the EuroHPC joint venture, this supercomputer will therefore be hosted at the end of 2025 at the CEA’s Very Large Computing Center (TGCC). It will benefit from the expertise of the latter’s High Performance Computing (HPC) division in the operation of large-scale systems such as Joliot-Curie (GENCI, for open research) and Topaze (CCRT, Center for Computing Research and Technology , for industrial research).
The main objective of the Jules Verne consortium is to deploy a world-class Exascale supercomputer, based on European hardware and software technologies. It will make it possible to respond to the major societal and scientific challenges via the convergence at the scale of digital simulations, the analysis of massive data and artificial intelligence.
Indeed, this project responds to major societal and global challenges corresponding to the national strategies of the Netherlands and France, in particular within the framework of France 2030 for the latter. The supercomputer will act as a sovereign accelerator in the finer modeling of the effects of climate change, in the development of new materials, energies and low-carbon mobility solutions, in the creation of digital twins of the human body allowing personalized medicine or still in training the next generation of generative AI or multimodal models. It will also address the challenges related to the explosion of data generated by scientific instruments (such as telescopes, satellites, sequencers, microscopes, sensor networks, etc. by IoT/Internet devices or by large simulations This avalanche of data makes the use of these supercomputers crucial for science, industry and decision-makers, in order to process this data in competitive timeframes and in the most energy-efficient way possible.
After the deployment of EuroHPC systems such as JUPITER (in Germany), the first Exascale system in Europe in 2024, Jules Verne will provide European, French and Dutch researchers with an unprecedented computing capacity of more than 1 Exaflop/s – one billion billion (“1” followed by 18 zeros) of operations per second, equivalent to over 5 million modern laptops, and over 300 PB of boot storage.
Beyond the machine itself, the Jules Verne consortium, in conjunction with other EuroHPC consortia, will provide support to European researchers for the porting and optimization of their applications on the supercomputer, as well as for training. In this perspective, the Jules Verne consortium will collaborate with all European Centers of Excellence (CoE) and end users for the implementation of the system. It has already established relationships with national R&D Exascale projects (such as the France 2030 NumPEx research program). As a reminder, the NumPEx program aims to design and develop software components that will equip future Exascale machines and prepare the major fields of scientific and industrial applications to fully exploit the capabilities of these machines. The NumPEx program has a budget of 40.8 million euros over 5 years.
The total cost of acquiring and operating the supercomputer for 5 years amounts to 542 million euros. Of this total, 271 million euros are provided by EuroHPC JU, 8 million euros by the Dutch Ministry of Culture, Education and Science and 263 million euros provided by the French Government. ONERA and IFPEN have expressed their intention to join the French part of the consortium, paving the way for other research institutes and French industrialists.
Beyond France and the Netherlands, the Jules Verne consortium is ready to welcome other countries, as partners sharing the same vision in the service of science, innovation and sovereign technologies.
Quotes
EuroHPC’s approval of the Jules Verne consortium’s application is excellent news for French and European research. This is another important step in securing financing for an Exascale-class supercomputer, worth a total of €542 million.
These means of calculation will be necessary to meet the scientific and technological challenges that await us, such as climate change, energy transition or health. The supercomputer will therefore play a key role in guaranteeing our technological sovereignty and our industrial competitiveness, and I hope that new public and private partners will join the consortium in the coming weeks.
Sylvie Retailleau, French Minister for Higher Education and Research
It is excellent news that the European scientific community, with France and the Netherlands in the lead, is joining forces to produce the supercomputer proposed by the Jules Verne consortium. Europe is thus reaffirming its position on the global research scene. Author Jules Verne has piqued our curiosity with stories about a technological future where one can travel to the Moon or the deep sea. Thanks to this supercomputer, we are doing it again. With this immense computing power, scientists have a glimpse of the future, allowing them to help solve fundamental societal problems in areas such as health or the fight against climate change.
Robbert Dijkgraaf, Dutch Minister of Education, Culture and Science
A billion billion operations per second to accelerate the advent of the future. GENCI is delighted with the announcement by EuroHPC of the selection of the Franco-Dutch consortium Jules Verne to host and operate an Exascale class supercomputer. It is an international recognition of French scientific and technical expertise in combining the applications of digital simulation, massive data analysis, artificial intelligence and soon hybrid quantum computing and by implementing hardware and European software.
Above all, these are the first steps in the era of the Exascale which will allow our national research communities to realize the dream of simulating complex phenomena to solve historical scientific puzzles as well as the possibility of being able to be creative in devices to meet the industrial and societal challenges of energy, innovative materials and health, such as the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
Philippe Lavocat, CEO of GENCI
This supercomputer will be an exceptional instrument for European research at the service of European society and sovereignty. It will enable major advances in many fields that are at the heart of CEA’s research activities, such as high-resolution climate modelling, fusion for energy, innovative materials, human digital twins and personalized medicine. It will provide our researchers and industrialists with world-class computing resources to exploit the deluges of data linked to the deployment of new digital systems, autonomously, and thus remain in the global race. The CEA has a long experience of designing and implementing pre-exascale supercomputers in state-of-the-art computing centers.
We will put all our expertise in the design and operation of computing centers at the service of this project, with the objective of performance and control of energy consumption.
François Jacq, General Administrator of the CEA
We are proud to work together in the Jules Verne Consortium to significantly advance research on societal challenges. This supercomputer will help Dutch researchers perform complex simulations in areas ranging from climate science to medicine and astronomy. We are very proud that our experts in large-scale computing, SURF, can contribute to this and thus help researchers in their work.
Jet de Ranitz, CEO of SURF
What is exascale ?
In today’s world, information has become an essential resource. Massive amounts of data are produced every day, from various sources such as social networks, sensors, scientific simulations, and many more. To efficiently process this data and meet the complex challenges of our time, it is crucial to have powerful computing capabilities.
This is where exascale comes in. Exascale is a measure of computing power that represents one trillion (10^18) floating point operations per second, or one million billion calculations per second. This performance is simply astounding and far exceeds that of all existing supercomputers.
Discover the exascale: The computing power of the future
The race to exascale :
Since the first electronic computers, the computing power of machines has grown exponentially thanks to the advancement of technologies. As computational demands grew more complex, researchers and engineers set themselves the goal of achieving exascale. This has given rise to a veritable race for innovation in the field of supercomputers.
Technological challenges :
Achieving exascale is not just about increasing the speed of processors. This requires a multidimensional approach that integrates several research areas. One of the main challenges is to design more energy-efficient processors capable of processing billions of calculations while minimizing power consumption.
In addition, the architecture of supercomputers must be redesigned to fully exploit the performance of processors. Parallel and distributed architectures, as well as the use of specialized processors like graphics accelerators (GPUs), play a key role in achieving exascale.
Exascale applications :
The exascale opens the way to many possibilities in various fields. In science and research, it will enable more accurate and faster simulations, enabling significant advances in fields such as medical research, meteorology, materials physics, astrophysics and many more.
Exascale is also essential for the development of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Deep learning models, which require massive amounts of data and computation, will be able to be trained much faster, enabling faster advancements in these areas.
49th ORAP Forum : The PEPR Numpex “Digital for Exascale”
29 novembre 2022, Maison de la simulation
The Digital PEPR for Exascale (NUMPEX) aims to design and develop the software components that will equip future exascale machines and prepare the major application areas to fully exploit the capabilities of these machines.
Major fields of application that relate to both scientific research and the industrial sector.
Register at: https://orap49.sciencesconf.org/