Irish researchers successful in PRACE prototype access call Posted on 24 July 2009

ICHEC is delighted to report that two of its users (Drs Niall English and Turlough Downes) have been successful in the first round of applications for access to PRACE prototype systems. A total of three applications in all were approved for access from an open call throughout EU supercomputer centres.  It is a considerable coup for Irish researchers to have won two of the three awards and we wish to offer our congratulations to Niall and Turlough for this very significant achievement. We of course look forward to working with them on the new challenges that now lie ahead.

Dr. Turlough Downes of Dublin City University has previously demonstrated the scaling of the HYDRA astrophysics code to 16k cores. Turlough has been granted the very substantial total of 4.2M core hours allowing him to take his work to another level using amongst others the JUGENE system, the 3rd fastest in the world. Dr. Michael Browne an ICHEC computational scientist will act as co-investigator on this project providing computational expertise and facilitating ICHEC's support of its users on Europe's fastest systems.

Dr. Niall English of University College Dublin will use his approved allocation of 214k core hours to examine the feasibility of using novel Carr-Parrinello Molecular Dynamics methods on very large machines to simulate interfaces of biological systems with nanomaterials. Niall has been awarded time on the JUGENE, JuRoPa and Loviatar systems. In this case both Gilles Civario and Alin Elena also ICHEC computational scientists are co-investigators.

Dr. Turlough Downes and Dr. Niall English pictured at the HPC Hub

It is worth noting that the two Irish researchers were awarded almost all of the available resources allocated for this round of applications.

The PRACE project is a European body that aims to co-ordinate access to the very largest computer systems at a European level. The systems are prototypes for future petascale HPC systems to be installed in Europe. If you are interested in applying for a future round of the PRACE Prototype access scheme information can be found here. ICHEC is the representative body for Ireland within PRACE and our staff will be glad to help with the preparation of applications. Here is a HPCwire report on the award.