Julich Research Centre has selected a Bull Supercomputer for research into nuclear fusion.
Forschungszentrum Julich in Germany has chosen Bull to supply a 100 Teraflops-capacity supercomputer to host applications for the European Union's Fusion project.
The main aim of the EU Fusion project is to speed-up research into nuclear fusion - a method of generating energy that could help meet the challenges of sustainable development and the disappearance of fossil fuels.
The Bull HPC-FF (High-Performance Computing for Fusion) supercomputer will be used to validate the latest nuclear fusion computer simulation models.
It will enable research into plasma turbulence, one of the major challenges confronting physicists.
The supercomputer will also be used in fast particle physics, which dominates plasmas in thermonuclear combustion and materials physics.
The Bull HPC-FF supercomputer will be a key component in the preparation of the IFERC (International Fusion Energy Research Centre) project: an international data centre being established as part of a collaboration between Europe and Japan in relation to the ITER programme.
The Bull HPC-FF supercomputer will enable the fusion community to prepare for using a Petaflops-scale supercomputer, which is destined to equip the IFERC in years to come.
Its simulations will refine the models developed by researchers and will guarantee the ITER can be utilised under optimum conditions: a vital imperative given that each ITER experiment will cost about EUR500 000 (GBP442 800).
The Bull HPC-FF will allow the fusion community to tap into additional power on demand from the Bull JuRoPA supercomputer, ordered from Bull by the Julich centre in 2008.
The two supercomputers - Bull HPC-FF and Bull JuRoPA (Julich Research on Petaflop Architectures) - will be installed by Bull during the first quarter of 2009, to create a computing platform delivering more than 300 Teraflops overall.
Xavier Garbet, research director and member of the HPC-FF office, said: 'The HPC-FF computer opens the way to substantial progress in several fields of research into fusion controlled by magnetic confinement, including turbulent transport, magnetohydrodynamic instabilities, plasma/wall interaction, heating systems and materials modelling.
'This is important to prepare for the ITER scientific programme under the best possible conditions.
'Indeed the modelling of ITER plasmas requires very fine grids and this requires extensive computer resources.
'Also the design of the DEMO demonstrator, which is the next step after ITER, will lead to the development of new materials.
'Modelling these materials will also require very powerful computing tools.
'Moreover the HPC-FF will involve experts in applied mathematics and computer sciences, whose skills are needed for the development and use of the codes capable of running of a machine of this class.
'Finally the HPC-FF will be useful to prepare the European scientific community for the future IFERC computer, which will be built at Rokkasho (Japan) and is due to go into operation in 2012.' The Bull HPC-FF will include 540 Bull Novascale R422 E2 servers, featuring the next generation of Intel Xeon processors.
The configuration includes 1,080 processing nodes, giving a total of 8,640 computing cores, each with 3GB of memory.
The high density of the technologies used will enable the entire supercomputer to be housed in just 20 racks.
Liquid cooling doors developed by Bull will provide efficient management of thermal dissipation at an optimum cost compared with more traditional air-cooling mechanisms.
The 1,080 computing nodes are interconnected via a network based on Infiniband QDR (Quad Data Rate) technology, delivering some of the fastest connections on the market.
A Directdata Networks 300TB storage sub-system is also linked to the new configuration.
