World’s Most Powerful Supercomputer to Help Tackle Global Warming, Develop Renewable Energy
The world’s most powerful supercomputer, the Cray XT Jaguar, is to be to used in the quest to fight global warming and develop renewable energy.
The computer, housed in the National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS) at Oak Ridge National Labs (ORNL), Tennessee, has been upgraded to a staggering 1.64 petaflops - and put at the disposal of some of the world’s leading climate scientists and renewable energy experts.
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The existing 84 cabinets of the XT4 Jaguar system has been integrated with an additional 200 cabinets of the Cray XT5, resulting in a machine with more than three times the memory of any other computer in the world.
According to NCCS, key projects that will benefit from the Jaguar upgrade include, the Climate Change Initiative, which “aims to accelerate discoveries about Earth’s climate system through lab-wide engagement of scientists and engineers from diverse directorates encompassing energy, environment, computing, and national security” and ‘Tap it and Trap it,’ a project aimed at separating Carbon Dioxide from power plant emissions and pumping it deep underground.
Some of the world’s finest brains, combined with by far the most impressive example of computing power on Earth - maybe we’ll start seeing some results to benefit the planet.
Image Credit - National Center for Computational Sciences
This is an aspect of understanding climate change that is seldom talked about. The ability to analyze data and perform multiple projections based on a variety of assumptions is critical if we are to make competent decisions as to how society needs to adapt to a changing world.
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