New supercomputer just dropped

Today marks the launch of CU Boulder’s shiny new research supercomputer, Alpine. Text of the university press release:

The celebratory event signals the official launch of CU Boulder’s third-generation high performance computing infrastructure, which is provisioned and available to campus researchers immediately.

On May 18, numerous leaders from on- and off-campus will gather to celebrate, introduce and officially launch the campus’s new high-performance computing infrastructure, dubbed “Alpine.”

Alpine replaces “RMACC Summit,” the previous infrastructure, which has been in use since 2017. Comparable to systems now in use at top peer institutions across the country, Alpine will improve upon RMACC Summit by providing cutting-edge hardware that enhances traditional High Performance Computing workloads, enables Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning workloads, and provides user-friendly access through tools such as Open OnDemand.

“Alpine is a modular system designed to meet the growing and rapidly evolving needs of our researchers,” said Assistant Vice Chancellor and Director of Research Computing Shelley Knuth. “Alpine addresses our users’ requests for faster compute and more robust options for machine learning.”

Notable among the technical specifications that will make Alpine an invaluable tool in research computing for researchers, industry partners and others, Alpine boasts: 3rd generation AMD EPYC CPUs, which provide enhanced energy efficiency per cycle compared to the Intel Xeon E5-2680 CPUs on RMACC Summit; Nvidia A100 GPUs; AMD MI100 GPUs; HDR InfiniBand; and 25 Gb Ethernet.

The kick-off event on May 18 will celebrate the Alpine infrastructure being fully operational and allow the community to enjoy a 20-minute tour, including snacks, an introduction to Research Computing, and a tour of the supercomputer container. The opportunity is open to the public and free of charge, and CU Boulder Research Computing staff will be on site to answer questions. CU Boulder Chief Information Officer Marin Stanek, Chief Operating Officer Patrick O’Rourke, and Acting Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation Massimo Ruzzene will offer remarks at 1:30 p.m.

In addition to the main launch event, Research Computing is offering a full slate of training and informational events the week of May 16—20.

Researchers seeking to use Research Computing resources, which includes not only the Alpine supercomputer, but also large scale data storage, cloud computing and secure research computing, are invited to visit the Research Computing website to learn about more training offerings, the community discussion forum, office hours and general contact information.

Alpine is funded by the Financial Futures strategic initiative.

This is the biggest project I have ever worked on. It was in the works months before I arrived but has consumed most of my professional time since September. It’s exciting that we can finally welcome our researchers to use it.