NAIS News Page


EPCC wins grant for Asynchronous Algorithms in EPSRC HPC Algorithms Sandpit
A grant was awarded following the EPSRC HPC Algorithms Sandpit to a team from the Universities of Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh, Hull and Strathclyde. Dr Mark Bull from NAIS partner EPCC will lead the Edinburgh part of the project. Summary: "The project aims to enable a step change in the performance of a wide range of real world applications, by applying and improving existing asynchronous algorithms for large sparse systems, and developing and analyzing entirely new asynchronous algorithms. The project will develop prototype software implementations of these algorithms which demonstrate both scalability and reliability. In the implementation of the software we will address the diversity of hardware platforms and programming models which will be found in future generations of machines, with at least 1 million cores. Another key aspect will be to exploit the inherent fault-tolerant nature of asynchronous algorithms to help address the need to cope with frequent hardware failures in extremely large machines. The software will be integrated into our two exemplar applications (bone modelling and power grid management), enabling them to carry out entirely new science as a result of enhanced problem resolution and reduced time to solution.


NAIS HPC Training Event
NAIS will provide HPC training for all staff connected to the project, and, on a space available basis, staff from other institutions. Dates: 15 February, 22 February, 1 March 2010. See the link on the NAIS Events page


NAIS joins the European Exascale Software Initiative
Andreas Grothey (Edinburgh-Mathematics) will act as deputy to Iain Duff (Rutherford Appleton Lab) on the European Exascale Software Initiative, organised by a consortium of European leaders in HPC. The main goal of EESI is to build a European vision and a roadmap to address the challenge of Peta and Exascaling computation and simulation. This will be done by involving large numbers of European actors in the HPC sphere, investigating how Europe is located in the overall international HPC landscape and competition, its strengths and weaknesses, and the topics and challenges that Europe may and must develop. EESI will also identify the sources of competitiveness for Europe induced by the development of Peta/Exascale solutions and usage.


NAIS Sponsors HPC Numerical Algorithms Survey
The Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre, on behalf of NAIS, is running a survey of UK HPC Numerical Algorithms in order to better target its resource and projects to themes and projects of UK significance. This survey is being conducted by Lawrence Mitchell and George Becket at EPCC. In coming weeks they will be contacting many users and developers of HPC codes and numerical analysts, both at the NAIS constituent universities, NAIS network partners, and beyond, to guage their needs and interests.


Multiscale Molecular Modelling Conference receives e-SI and MD-NET cofunding
NAIS has received matching funds from the UK's e-Science Institute and the EPSRC-funded Research Network on Mathematical Challenges of Molecular Dynamics (MD-NET) to run an international meeting June 30-July 3, 2010. From the overview of the meeting: "...As uniprocessor performance increases tail off, the search is on for new types of (molecular modelling) methods that can continue to offer speed increases in the setting of distributed hybrid architectures, or the grid. An interesting recent development which is becoming prominent in the molecular simulation literature is the reformulation of molecular modelling in terms of path sampling strategies, whereby multiple trajectories are used to probe complex configurational pathways, often disturbing thermodynamic equilibrium to enhance mobility or to force rare transitions. These multiscale molecular algorithms are well suited to implementation in an event-driven distributed computing setting... "


NAIS Hires New Lecturers
Magnus Svard, previously based in Oslo, has been hired to a NAIS Lectureship at the University of Edinburgh. Magnus works on numerical analysis problems related to computational fluid dynamics. Ozgur Ergul from Bilkent University (Turkey) has been hired to a NAIS Lectureship at the University fo Strathclyde. He works in parallel simulation of electromagnetic problems. Vijay Nagarajan has taken up a NAIS Lectureship in the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. Vijay studies compilers, computer architecture and software engineering, in particular in the setting of multicore technology.


NAIS Launch Event
NAIS's launch event took place on October 21. Coming on the heels of the NSF-NAIS Workshop on Intelligent Software: the Interface between Algorithms and Machines the Launch Event featured a superb public lecture by Marc Snir (University of Illinois) on Key Challenges in High Performance Computing: Algorithms and Programming Environments for Petascale and Beyond. This was followed by a fine reception in the new Informatics Forum and a dinner at St Leonards Hall. Photos Below from the Launch Event.

The stunning new Informatics Forum at the University of Edinburgh provided an excellent setting for the Launch Event.

Marc Snir demonstrates Illinois-style parallellism.

Cora Cartis (Edinburgh-Maths) discusses with Phillippe Toint (NAIS Advisory Board) and Nick Gould (Rutherford Appleton Lab).

Liz Jessup (Colorado) and Iain Duff (Rutherford Appleton Lab).

Photo from NSF-NAIS Workshop on Intelligent Software

At the reception

Strathclyde's Dean of Science Iain Hunter and Edinburgh's Head of College of Science and Engineering Nigel Brown (PI on the NAIS project).

Ben Leimkuhler (NAIS Director) in discussion with Rudolf Roemer, the director of Warwick's Centre for Scientific Computing.