Fujitsu Laboratories of Europe Limited will work with The Australian National University in a three-year project that aims to apply new mathematical ideas to exploit the computational power of the next generation of supercomputers.
Fujitsu Limited supports the project through the efforts of Fujitsu Laboratories of Europe.
The company announced an award of A$446,000 (US$ 474,000) by the Australian Research Council for the three-year Linkage Project1 with The Australian National University.
The objective of the new project, "Robust Numerical Solution of Partial Differential Equations on Petascale Computer Systems with Applications to Tsunami Modeling and Plasma Physics", is to develop new techniques and software that will reveal the workings of complex dynamical systems.
Fujitsu team leader and Partner Investigator Dr Ross Nobes said the development of the crucial technology forms a logical extension to the Fujitsu-sponsored Open Petascale Libraries2 (OPL) global initiative launched last year.
Nobes said, "It [the project] will cover some important new ground – tackling the challenge of scalable, robust, fault-tolerant computer simulation, which will be of increasing importance as we head towards exascale computing."
"We plan to use two key applications as the test beds for the research – tsunami modelling and plasma physics – and build on ANU’s expertise in advanced mathematical techniques including wavelets and high-dimensional approximations to deliver advanced mathematical software for petascale and future advanced supercomputers."
Nobes added, "As part of the project, we will be undertaking specific optimisations on state-of-the-art supercomputers with multi-core nodes and complex communication networks, including Fujitsu’s latest high-performance computing systems. We look forward to some exciting results over the three years of the project."
The Australian National University team is led by Professor Markus Hegland of the Mathematical Sciences Institute, with Professor Richard Brent and Associate Professor Stephen Roberts of the Mathematical Sciences Institute, plus Associate Professor Alistair Rendell and Dr Peter Strazdins of the Research School of Computer Science contributing as Chief Investigators.
