“It’s a monster,” he said.
Due for arrival in April, the computer will be fully online this summer, said Virginia Ross, an AFRL computer engineer. With 125,888 compute cores, it will have tens of thousands more than the 72,000 cores with the computing power of 26,000 PCs, in the last supercomputer.
“It enables the Air Force and (the Defense Department) to move forward much faster than if they were using wind tunnels and PCs,” she said. “It enables the military to stay ahead technologically.”
The ultra high-speed supercomputer, the third since 2013, will aid researchers in hypersonics, computational chemistry and fluid dynamics, among other realms, said Lloyd Slonaker, chief of the advanced technologies branch at AFRL.
“The overall processing requirements keeps demand very high,” he said. “Even with these two new (supercomputer) systems we’ve had in the past two years, it’s amazing at how fast we’ve filled up the job jar.”
Another goal: Shorten the development time and speed up the years-long acquisition of weapon systems, which is “way too long,” Graham said.
“You’re talking years and years and years,” he said. “Our program is looking for a way to shorten that cycle and get weapons systems in the field more quickly.”
In 2014, the lab installed a $20.8 million Cray XC-30, dubbed “Lighting.” In 2013, AFRL started the $24 million SGI Altix Ice X , nicknamed “Spirit.” The Air Force names supercomputers after planes. The latest addition is named for the World War II-era P-47 Thunderbolt.
Part of a push to modernize its computing power, the Defense Department spent $150 million on supercomputers in 2014 alone. A fourth supercomputer is expected in 2017 at the Information Technology Center at Wright-Patterson.
“When we opened that three years ago it was pretty empty, and now it’s getting pretty full,” Slonaker said.
The agency replaces the machines about every two years because of advances in computer technologies.
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