T-Platforms to build ten petaflop supercomputer for Moscow State University

In post-Soviet Russia, massive supercomputer programs you. (Sorry, we had to.) Recently, Russia's Moscow State University contracted with high-performance computing company T-Platforms to create a ten petaflop cluster that'll be operational in 2013. The computer would fall just short of the fastest supercomputer on Earth (the Japanese K Computer, which is rated at 10.51 petaflops) and will incorporate a mixture of different node types to achieve the ten petaflops. T-Platforms will reportedly build the nodes from Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge Xeon processors and NVIDIA's next-generation Kepler GPU coprocessors, and Intel's Many Integrated Core (MIC) architecture could also be included if it's available during construction. The reason for the project? Unknown officially, but we're guessing it's just another reason for Putin to rip his shirt off and celebrate.

T-Platforms to Build 10-Petaflop Supercomputer for Moscow State University

MOSCOW, Dec. 21 – T-Platforms, a global developer and supplier of supercomputers and a full range of solutions and services for high-performance computing, today announced an agreement to design a computer cluster capable of 10 PFlops (10^15 floating point operations per second) for M.V.Lomonosov Moscow State University. Under the terms of the agreement, the company will develop a complete computing system incorporating the necessary supercomputer and engineering infrastructure to ensure uninterrupted job processing.

Currently, two computing systems from T-Platforms are functioning at M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University. The MSU Cebyšev Supercomputer was built in 2008. At that time it held the 36th position on the Top500 global list of the most powerful computing clusters and was seventh among all supercomputers used in the world's education system. Following the commissioning of this system, the need for additional capacity and capability soon became evident when this cluster's resources became fully allocated.

With steadily increasing scientific issues and challenges to be addressed, an objective need for scaling in computing power appeared. University leadership decided on the acquisition of a new, more powerful supercomputer complex which would provide high-end resources for more scientific teams and allow for conducting more research. This cluster, the Lomonosov Supercomputer, was designed and built by T-Platforms. Today, the performance of the Lomonosov system has set a record for Russia and CIS at 1.3 PFlops, allowing it to hold the leadership position among the Top50 – a list of the most powerful supercomputers in Russia and CIS, as well as being ranked 13th on the Top500 rating.

The MSU computing systems support fundamental scientific and application research in aerospace, nuclear, biomedical, oil and gas, and many other industries. However, due to the computational demands and increased need to scale these applications, the existing computing power is no longer adequate to meet reasonable turn-around time. With this consideration, MSU decided to seek the development of a new computing cluster capable of 10 PFlops.

"We have enjoyed close cooperation with M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University for many years, and it is appropriate to describe MSU as a strategic partner for our company," said Vsevolod Opanasenko, CEO of T-Platforms. "We consider this selection a competitive victory, and we are honored to design a new generation computer system with record-breaking performance for our country. This is a strong confirmation of the highest expertise of our engineers and developers by the largest Russian Scientific Centre. Creating this system will mark a new stage in development of a domestic supercomputing industry and provide fundamental new possibilities for Russian science."

The following quote is from the Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, November 12, 2009:

"Russia needs to make full use of the potential of supercomputers and supercomputer systems linked by high-speed data exchange channels. With their help, within five years we could start designing new planes and spacecrafts, cars and nuclear reactors. Sophisticated technology that has not gone through supercomputer simulation and not been digitalized, so to speak, will find itself without demand on the market within a few years."

About T-Platforms:
T-Platforms (www.t-platforms.ru) is a global supercomputer developer and a supplier of the full range of solutions and services for the high performance computing. Founded in 2002, T-Platforms maintains headquarters in Moscow (Russia) and regional offices in Hanover (Germany), Kiev (Ukraine), Taipei (Taiwan), and Hong Kong (China). The company has implemented more than 200 integrated projects, six of which are included in the Top500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers. T-Platforms owns patents on a number of supercomputer technologies and electronic components. Solutions from T-Platforms are used for academic and applied research in various fields of science, including life sciences, nuclear physics, chemistry, mathematics, as well as for highly calculation-intensive tasks in engineering, computer graphics and much more. In 2011, the supercomputing industry publication, HPCWire, named Vsevolod Opanasenko, CEO of T-Platforms, one of 12 most famous and respected people of the HPC global community.