2024-01-11 09:37:07
The Astronomy Department’s machine used to be the third most advanced in the country and recently received an improvement in its capabilities that raise its level of calculation to higher levels, being key to advancing simulations that will allow us to better understand the Universe.
Significant advances in computational astronomy that can evolve to much higher levels. This has been achieved and what will be promoted Kultrúnthe supercomputer owned by the Department of Astronomy of the University of Concepción (UdeC) and which received a powerful improvement in your facilities that were inaugurated this week through a ceremony.
Until before the update it was the third most advanced in the country and now itIt left a computing power similar to 15% of the capacity of the Guacolda server clusterthe supercomputer of the National High Performance Computing Laboratory, which is the largest in Chile, said Dr. Dominik SchleicherUdeC Astronomy academic who leads the work that allowed the milestone to materialize.
And the milestone was achieved thanks to a proposal that came in first place in the Anid 2022 Quimal Astronomy Funds Contest. They were more than $193 million lwere awarded and which made it possible to acquire powerful components that were installed in Kultrún to increase its capabilities.
The project is also made up of doctors Michael Fellhaueras alternate director, and Stefano Bovino, both from UdeC Astronomy. Doctors also participate Andrés Escala and Rafeel Riaz, from the universities of Chile and Bernardo O’Higgins, respectively.
He upgrade
The implementation of Kultrún was possible mainly through financing granted by a previous Quimal project and a Ring.
This is how a supercomputer was achieved that until before the upgrade “cIt consisted of a shared memory machine with 224 cores, the largest of its kind in the country, in addition to 576 Intel cores, 64 AMD cores and a backup system”, highlighted Dr. Schleicher, also a researcher at the Center for Astrophysics and Related Technologies (CATA) and the Millennium Titans Nucleus.
On a technical level, now Four NVIDIA A100 graphics cards were incorporated into the server. These are extremely powerful and are focused on processing high flows of information, unlike classic desktop computer cards or those dedicated to video games or digital content creation.
The installation of the powerful components results in achieving tremendous computing capacity concentrated in a single unit, unlike Guacolda, the astronomer emphasized.
High impact potential
The operation of the improved Kultrún will allow highly efficient work to be carried out and simulations to be increased to very advanced levels, assured Dominik Schleicher.
And the potential impact of this is very high, both at a scientific level and the generation of new knowledge as well as in the training of professionals in the use of new technologies that are part of the infrastructure of the most avant-garde laboratories in the world. In fact, he stated that “more than 10 students educated at Kultrún received doctorate offers from other countrieses”.
The astronomer revealed that the highly complex and first-level simulations that he has allowed and in which he will now significantly evolve, play a crucial role in advancing research to better understand the formation of stars and black holes or stellar fusion.
Through these methods, data is obtained that allows for the construction of quantitative predictions of theories about these phenomena; calculations that the scientist defined as ““quite important to compare with existing observations and new observations from the future.”
And he highlighted the contribution of Kultrún to analyze information provided by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a virtual telescope the size of the Earth made up of different instruments that has allowed the milestones of developing the first images of supermassive black holes, revealed to the world in 2019 by an international team made up of UdeC astronomers, and advancing the study of these objects astronomical. And in the near future it will be in relation to the data provided by the Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) which is built in Chile.
In this sense, Dr. Schleicher highlighted that Kultrún is available for use by researchers with work whose objectives align with its characteristics and access can be requested from the Department of Astronomy UdeC.
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