HPC/Supercomputing

By Glenn Roberts Jr. A team of researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) used a quantum computer to successfully simulate an aspect of particle collisions that is typically neglected in high-energy physics experiments, such as those that occur at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. The quantum algorithm they developed accounts for the complexity of…

By Daniel Ackerman | MIT News Office Superconductors — materials that conduct electricity without resistance — are remarkable. They provide a macroscopic glimpse into quantum phenomena, which are usually observable only at the atomic level. Beyond their physical peculiarity, superconductors are also useful. They’re found in medical imaging, quantum computers and cameras used with telescopes.…

A new AI-based toolset developed by scientists at Q-CTRL enables quantum computers to optimize their own performance autonomously without user intervention. The fundamental building blocks of quantum algorithms are extremely susceptible to errors, posing the most substantial barrier to progress in quantum computing. Q-CTRL’s new tools use custom AI agents to enact algorithms with fewer errors…

CEA announced today the acquisition of a Cryogenic Wafer Prober manufactured by Bluefors Oy, the Finnish specialist in designing and manufacturing ultralow temperature-dilution refrigerator systems for cutting-edge research in quantum computing and nanotechnology. CEA-Leti, a technology research institute at CEA, is the first microelectronics research institute to install this strategic equipment in its cleanroom. Created…

  A multi-institutional team became the first to generate accurate results from materials science simulations on a quantum computer that can be verified with neutron scattering experiments and other practical techniques. Researchers from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory; the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Purdue University and D-Wave Systems harnessed the power of…

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced plans to provide up to $32 million to harness DOE supercomputers for advanced research in a wide range of scientific fields, including materials science, condensed matter physics, chemical sciences, geosciences and energy-related biosciences. The effort is part of a joint program that brings together experts in key…

Researchers from the University of Bristol and quantum start-up, Phasecraft, have advanced quantum computing research, bringing practical hybrid quantum-classical computing one step closer. The team, led by Bristol researcher and Phasecraft co-founder, Dr. Ashley Montanaro, has discovered algorithms and analysis which significantly lessen the quantum hardware capability needed to solve problems which go beyond the…

Scientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) are working with Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQC) to accelerate research and development to support the commercialization and optimization of their quantum technologies, such as IronBridge, and help with the characterization of photonic components. This includes the metrology of emerging ultra-low loss optical connectors, for example, to meet the exacting requirements…

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and its partners AMD, Supermicro and Cornelis Networks have installed a new high-performance computing (HPC) cluster with memory and data storage capabilities optimized for data-intensive COVID-19 research and pandemic response. Funded by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the “big memory” cluster, called Mammoth, will be used at LLNL…

Bristol researchers have developed a tiny device that paves the way for higher performance quantum computers and quantum communications, making them significantly faster than the current state-of-the-art. Researchers from the University of Bristol’s Quantum Engineering Technology Labs (QET Labs) and Université Côte d‘Azur have made a new miniaturized light detector to measure quantum features of light in more detail than ever before. The device, made from two silicon chips working together, was used…

Eyeing future demand for hack-proof digital communication in a quantum-information world, CEA-Leti today announced plans to build a quantum-photonics platform to develop next-generation technologies for key industries that require ultra-secure data transmission. Quantum technology is expected to provide unconditionally safe data encryption required by the finance, health care, energy, telecommunications, defense and other essential industries…

By Neal Singer This spring, Sandia National Laboratories anticipates being one of the first Department of Energy laboratories to receive the newest A64FX Fujitsu processor, a Japanese Arm-based processor optimized for high-performance computing. Arm-based processors are used widely in small electronic devices like cell phones. More recently, Arm-based processors were installed in Sandia’s Astra supercomputer,…

Jennifer Chu | MIT News Office The White House has announced the launch of the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium, a collaboration among various industry, government, and academic institutions which will aim to make their supercomputing resources available to the wider research community, in an effort to speed up the search for solutions to the…

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have used Summit, the world’s most powerful and smartest supercomputer, to identify 77 small-molecule drug compounds that might warrant further study in the fight against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which is responsible for the COVID-19 disease outbreak. The two researchers performed simulations on Summit of more…

Written by Shannon Brescher Shea A computer is suspended from the ceiling. Delicate lines and loops of silvery wires and tubes connect gold-colored platforms. It seems to belong in a science-fiction movie, perhaps a steam-punk cousin of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey. But as the makers of that 1968 movie imagined computers the size…

A cooling unit installed on the roof of Sandia National Laboratories’ supercomputer center saved 554,000 gallons of water during its first six months of operation last year, says David J. Martinez, engineering project lead for Sandia’s Infrastructure Computing Services. The dramatic decrease in water use, important for a water-starved state, could be the model for…

By Ken Strandberg The European X-ray Free-electron Laser (European XFEL), recently completed its first experiments that captured images of an antibiotic-disabling enzyme. Scientists use X-rays to bombard molecules and project molecular smatterings on a sensor that reconstructs what the target looks like.  With these high-energy X-rays we now have 3D visualizations of actual molecules, like…

Giant-scale physics experiments are increasingly reliant on big data and complex algorithms fed into powerful computers, and managing this multiplying mass of data presents its own unique challenges. To better prepare for this data deluge posed by next-generation upgrades and new experiments, physicists are turning to the fledgling field of quantum computing to find faster…

Researchers across the scientific spectrum crave data, as it is essential to understanding the natural world and, by extension, accelerating scientific progress. Lately, however, the tools of scientific endeavor have become so powerful that the amount of data obtained from experiments and observations is often unwieldy. In other words, it is possible to have too…

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, working in collaboration with Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and Convergent Science Inc., have created a new numerical modeling tool that allows for a better understanding of a powerful engine that could one day propel the next generation of airplanes and rockets. Rotating detonation…

Some of the world’s most powerful earthquakes involve multiple faults, and scientists are using supercomputers to better predict their behavior. Multi-fault earthquakes can span fault systems of tens to hundreds of kilometers, with ruptures propagating from one segment to the other. During the last decade, scientists have observed several cases of this complicated type of…

Owners of thoroughbred stallions carefully breed prizewinning horses over generations to eke out fractions of a second in million-dollar races. Materials scientists have taken a page from that playbook, turning to the power of evolution and artificial selection to develop superconductors that can transmit electric current as efficiently as possible. Perhaps counterintuitively, most applied superconductors…