The U.S. National Science Foundation selected UT’s Texas Advanced Computing Center, investing $457 million, to become the Leadership-Class Computing Facility to lead national research projects, according to a July 11 press release.
The foundation’s initial investment will fund increased staff, construction of a new data center and overall facility improvement. Katie Antypas, the foundation’s director of advanced cyberinfrastructure, said the facility will be a national resource.
“(The facility) will be the largest advanced computing system in the country,” Antypas said. “It’s important to note that this facility will support the national need, and it’s really hosted and led by (the Texas Advanced Computing Center).”
Ed Walker, the cognizant program officer for the new facility, said the foundation sent out a public solicitation in 2017 asking for proposals for deploying a leadership-class computing system and facility. He said an external panel led the internal merit review process and reviewed each proposal.
“We made a selection based on the merits of the proposals that were submitted, and (UT) was given the award to firstly deploy Frontera, (a computer system), which is phase one of this leadership-class computing investment,” Walker said. “We made the award announcement recently to begin the execution and construction for this leadership-class computing facility, which is really phase two.”
Frontera was deployed in 2019 using a $60 million grant from the foundation. Walker said the facility used the computer system during the COVID-19 pandemic to try and understand the mechanisms for the spread of the virus. The computing center’s Frontera and Lonestar6 were among six supercomputers selected for the foundation’s National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource pilot.
Dan Stanzione, the associate vice president for research at UT and executive director of the computing center, said the new facility aims to continue this kind of research, including using AI to provide computing to confirm the existence of gravitational waves and increase the speed and accuracy of hurricane forecasts. He said the new facility will include the installation of Horizon, a supercomputer 10 times bigger than Frontera that works 100 times faster.
“One thing that sort of makes big computers special is that they’re not that special,” Stanzione said. “If you buy a big microscope, no astronomer needs a microscope, it’s for the biologists and chemists. If you buy a big telescope, you’re serving the astronomers, or if you’re buying a bunch of weather stations, it’s for climate science. If you buy a computer, you’re serving everybody, so we’re sort of the Swiss Army knife on a large scale.”
The new facility is expected to begin operations in 2026. Stanzione said the center will operate until at least 2037, with an option for renewal in 2047.
“I think the important thing for us at (the center) is that it makes us in many ways sustainable,” Stanzione said. “Being part of the large facility and infrastructure like this means there will be a footprint left behind. The computers will come and go, but the large facility will stay.”
