NDSU researchers will gain a new supercomputing cluster through a Major Research Instrumentation grant from the National Science Foundation. The state-of-the-art system, called “Thunder Prime,” is intended for research and educational activities that require processing massive amounts of data.
The NSF award is for $884,596. An additional $379,113 in cost sharing will come from other sources, making the total cost of the project $1,263,709.
The system will be under the umbrella of NDSU’s Center for Computationally Assisted Science and Technology and will have a peak performance of 238 TFLOPS.
“The acquired instrument will significantly improve NDSU’s capabilities to conduct leading-edge research as it substantially expands and updates the current advanced research computing resources for scientific research and education,” said principal investigator Bakhtiyor Rasulev, assistant professor of coatings and polymeric materials.
“Thunder Prime will serve beyond the immediate needs of current NDSU researchers and students at several colleges,” Rasulev said, noting a multi-disciplinary team of 18 NDSU scientists worked on the grant proposal. “The new facility will help foster collaborations with researchers within the state of North Dakota, as well as nationally and internationally. These external researchers can make significant contributions to and further enhance NDSU’s research.”
Co-principal investigators include Dinesh R. Katti, Jordon A. Engberg Presidential Professor of civil and environmental engineering; Svetlana V. Kilina, associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry; Khang Hoang, research facilitator at the Center for Computationally Assisted Science and Technology; and Dane Skow, executive director of the Center for Computationally Assisted Science and Technology.
“The new supercomputing capabilities that the grant will bring will enable major discoveries in a range of fields, including accurate prediction of cancer progression and tissue regeneration, simulations-driven design of unique new materials and structures, precision agriculture, artificial intelligence and machine learning,” Katti said. “Computing will speed up discoveries in fields that have traditionally relied on experiments and trial and error methods. The supercomputing facilities will also enable research and education collaborations with other institutions, including tribal colleges and primarily undergraduate colleges, and aid in the workforce development in high technology fields.”
Other team members include Kalpana Katti, University Distinguished Professor of civil and environmental engineering; Dmitri Kilin, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry; Wenjie Xia, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering; Ghasideh Pourhashem, assistant professor of coatings and polymeric materials; Simone Ludwig, professor and interim chair elect of computer science; Yildirim B. Suzen, associate professor of mechanical engineering; Xin “Rex” Sun, assistant professor of precision agriculture; Andrei Kryjevski, assistant professor of physics; Trung B. Le, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering; Shaobin Zhong, professor of plant pathology; Nonoy Bandillo, assistant professor of plant sciences; Rick Jansen, assistant professor of public health; Le “Tim” Trung, assistant professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering; and Limin Zhang, associate professor of accounting and information systems.
The NSF award number is 2019077.
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