At the International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC24) held in Atlanta, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) showcased its significant influence on the field of supercomputing. The event, which ran from November 17-22, saw a global assembly of more than 18,000 attendees drilling down into the latest in high-performance computing and artificial intelligence. ORNL's foray into the conference made headlines, with a team involving Dmytro Bykov from ORNL's Computing and Computational Sciences Directorate, bagging the prestigious Gordon Bell Prize. As reported by ORNL, their groundbreaking quantum molecular dynamics simulation work, tapping into the capabilities of the Frontier supercomputer, achieved an unprecedented scale and speed, which was a thousand-fold improvement over past endeavors.
Laying claim to another victory, a Gordon Bell winning team powered by the Frontier supercomputer was from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. By pushing the limits of climate modeling, the team devised an exascale climate emulator that offers more granular results than traditional models while cutting down severely on computational costs and data storage demands. Gina Tourassi of ORNL highlighted, "Our deep involvement in SC24 reflects our enduring commitment to advancing computing," in a statement obtained by ORNL, continuing, "Our team's extensive participation demonstrates our dedication to pushing the boundaries of supercomputing and collaborating with the global HPC community."
A slew of ORNL affiliates, including Steven Hahn and a team of diligent researchers, secured a coveted Best Paper award. Integrating ORNL’s state-of-the-art computing testbeds with the Spallation Neutron Source, they have set a benchmark in marrying experimental data with advanced simulation speeds, bringing analyses from hours to a matter of minutes. Describing the direction of their research endeavors, Steven Hahn told ORNL, "Receiving this recognition at XLOOP (held in conjunction with SC24) validates our work from the multidisciplinary community of experts connecting large-scale experimental science with high-performance computing user facilities."
Marking another significant feat, ORNL’s ORBIT team received the HPCwire Top Supercomputing Achievement award for their strides in AI-driven weather modeling. They've developed a transformative model boasting 113 billion parameters, named ORBIT, which stands out for its improved computational efficiency and forecasting accuracy. With widespread recognition, the conference served as a fertile ground for ORNL experts like Woong Shin and Matthias Maiterth to conduct presentations on HPC energy efficiency, while other researchers engaged the consortium with immersive demos, as per the insights shared by ORNL.
The event also became a congregation point to chart the future course of computational science initiatives, as suggested by Arjun Shankar of ORNL: "The supercomputing conference is an important venue to meet with collaborators and partners to discuss ongoing and forward-looking computational science initiatives at the laboratory," as noted by the ORNL.
