UT, National Science Foundation Launch 5th-fastest Supercomputer

Texas – Representatives from the National Science Foundation (NSF) joined The University of Texas at Austin (UT) on September 3 to officially launch Frontera, the fastest supercomputer at any university and fifth-most powerful system in the world.

Frontera has been assisting science applications since June and allowing more than 36 teams to conduct research on various topics such as black hole physics, climate modeling, and drug design by using simulation, data analysis, and artificial intelligence at previously impossible scales.

A $63 million award from the NSF’s Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure served as the catalyst for the project to begin in September 2018. Private-sector technology partners aided the university in building and installing the supercomputer in early 2019.

The supercomputer is located at UT’s Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) and open not only to UT students but also to the science community at large. Projects will be selected through a competitive application process, and researchers will need to show that their work merits access to a computer at the scale of Frontera to solve their problems.

Once selected for a project, researchers will work with TACC specialists who will be on site to support their work with the supercomputer. Under the award agreement with the NSF, Frontera will operate for a minimum of five years to support research projects.

This article was originally published by Strategic Partnerships Inc.