Argonne Wins 3 HPCwire Awards

The awards recognize collaborative science using high performance computing.

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory received three awards from HPCwire, a leading website covering the high-performance computing industry. The awards were announced Nov. 14 at SC22, the annual supercomputing conference in Dallas, Texas.

The awards recognize Argonne’s leadership in high performance computing, including industry collaborations. Scientific advances today often depend on the ability to solve large, complex problems relatively quickly with powerful computers and algorithms. Argonne uses high performance computing for purposes ranging from more efficient engines to exploring the cosmos.

“These awards recognize projects that are quite distinct in their own way, but share a common theme: collaboration.” — Rick Stevens, Associate Director of the Argonne Laboratory for the Computing, Environment, and Life Sciences Division and Argonne Distinguished Fellow

In addition to cutting-edge computing expertise, the lab houses the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), a DOE Office of Science user facility. HPCwire presented several awards to Argonne last year.

Improved artificial intelligence tools

Argonne’s work to expand the usability of artificial intelligence (AI) models won a Readers’ Choice Award in the Best Use of High-Performance Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence category.

The research aims to make data science more reproducible through a set of principles known as FAIR: findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. The team included scientists from Argonne, the University of Chicago, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They created a computational framework that allows AI models to run seamlessly on different types of hardware and software platforms and produce the same results.

The research was funded by the DOE’s Office of Advanced Scientific Computing Research, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the National Science Foundation, and Argonne Laboratory-led research and development grants. To perform the calculations, the team used ALCF AI Testbed’s SambaNova system and NVIDIA graphics processing units from the Theta supercomputer. Data for the study was acquired at the Advanced Photon Source, also a DOE Office of Science user facility.

Collaborate with industry for concrete solutions

Argonne received another Readers’ Choice Award in the Best Use of HPC in Industry (Automotive, Aerospace, Manufacturing, Chemical) category. In collaboration with the research center of Raytheon Technologies, Argonne has developed machine learning models for the design and optimization of high-efficiency gas turbines in aircraft. The machine learning models were trained on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of gas turbine film cooling performed on DOE supercomputers. CFD simulations approximate the way fluids like air or fuel move, and they are essential for improving the efficiency of machines of all kinds. The researchers’ framework can increase the fuel efficiency and durability of aircraft engines while reducing design time and cost. The work is funded by the DOE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office through the HPC4EnergyInnovation program.

In the same industrial category, Argonne also won an Editors’ Choice Award for its work with Aramco Americas and Convergent Science focused on high-fidelity CFD simulations of hydrogen engines using resources from ALCF and the Laboratory Computing Resource Center in ‘Argonne. The work will help accelerate the adoption of clean and highly efficient hydrogen propulsion systems for the transport sector, facilitating an accelerated transition to low-carbon energy.

“These awards recognize projects that are quite distinct in their own way, but share a common theme: collaboration,” said Rick Stevens, Argonne Lab associate director for the Computing, Environment, and Life Sciences division and Argonne Distinguished Fellow. . “We strive to move science from supercomputing to real-world solutions.”

The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility provides supercomputing capabilities to the scientific and engineering community to advance fundamental discovery and understanding across a wide range of disciplines. Supported by the Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science, the ALCF is one of two DOE advanced computing facilities dedicated to open science.

About the Advanced Photon Source

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory is one of the most productive x-ray light source facilities in the world. APS provides high-luminosity X-ray beams to a diverse community of researchers in materials science, chemistry, condensed matter physics, life and environmental sciences, and applied research. These X-rays are perfectly suited to the exploration of materials and biological structures; elementary distribution; chemical, magnetic, electronic states; and a wide range of technologically important engineering systems, from batteries to fuel injectors, all of which are the foundations of our country’s economic, technological and physical well-being. Each year, more than 5,000 researchers use APS to produce more than 2,000 publications detailing impactful discoveries and solving more vital biological protein structures than users of any other X-ray light source research facility. Scientists and APS engineers are innovating in technology that is central to advancing accelerator and light source operations. This includes insertion devices that produce the extremely bright X-rays that are prized by researchers, lenses that focus X-rays down to a few nanometers, instrumentation that maximizes how X-rays interact with samples studied and the software that gathers and manages the massive amount of data resulting from discovery research at APS.

This research utilized resources from the Advanced Photon Source, a United States DOE Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02- 06CH11357.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts cutting-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state, and municipal agencies to help them solve their specific problems, advance American scientific leadership, and prepare the nation for a better future. With employees in more than 60 countries, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science is the largest supporter of basic physical science research in the United States and strives to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://​ener​gy​.gov/​s​c​ience.