Background

In the 21st century, climate and ecological-environment change have become major global scientific issues. Solving these large-scale, multi-sphere (atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, biosphere) complex scientific problems, and seeking sustainable economic and environmental development, depends on complete numerical-simulation methods and high-precision computing. The United States, the European Union, Japan, and other developed economies have built large Earth-simulation facilities; China is actively preparing its own Earth Numerical Simulation Facility.

In 2015, led by the CAS Institute of Atmospheric Physics and jointly with Sugon, the CAS Institute of Computing Technology, and the CAS Computer Network Information Center, pre-research and prototype construction of the Earth System Numerical Simulation Facility were launched.

Project Requirements

Earth-system numerical simulation requires computational modeling in dedicated fields such as atmospheric science, geology, environmental-pollution forecasting, precipitation forecasting, marine-productivity forecasting, and vegetation-distribution evolution. It also needs high generality to provide computing services for the economy, transport, education, agriculture, water conservancy, oceans, meteorology, and geology. The system requires ultra-high computing performance and massive storage.

Solution

The facility uses Sugon’s latest Silicon Cube series HPC system, which leads domestically in architecture, compute density, storage architecture, and energy efficiency.

The advanced 3D-Torus interconnect offers excellent communication performance and scalability. High-density compute and storage, system partitioning, and co-design maximize match to Earth-science application patterns while also covering general computing needs.

Liquid cooling greatly lowers system PUE, raises energy efficiency, reduces noise, and improves space utilization and computing performance.

Customer Benefits

Disaster reduction and pollution control, promoting sustainable development of humanity and nature;

Strengthening China’s climate diplomacy and environmental voice, and resisting data constraints from Western countries;

Raising China’s collaborative innovation and research capability in Earth science;

A big-data-driven research-innovation model that serves economic and social development through scientific and technological innovation and drives innovation across industries.