AsianScientist (Nov. 14, 2024) – The National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore launched the nation’s latest high-performance research supercomputers—ASPIRE 2A and ASPIRE 2A+. The two systems are available to researchers, SMEs and startups, and have already produced impactful results.
At the official launch, Mr Heng Swee Keat, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the National Research Foundation (NRF) announced Singapore’s commitment of S$270 million to NSCC Singapore in support of building next-generation supercomputers and developing local supercomputing talent.
The supercomputers are housed at the National University of Singapore innovation4.0 (i4.0) building in the NUS-NSCC i4.0 Data Centre and are accessible to users from anywhere on their own computers.
ASPIRE 2A serves as Singapore’s current high-performance computing (HPC) workhorse and supports computationally-intensive research across a range of fields—these include climate and weather, materials and chemical sciences, genetics and healthcare, advanced modelling and simulation as well as big data analytics.
Compared to the recently-retired ASPIRE 1, ASPIRE 2A offers seven times the computational power. To do so, it contains double the number of NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs). Specifically, ASPIRE 2A is powered by 352 NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs—each providing the computing power of roughly 200 standard consumer laptops.
Within the same data center, ASPIRE 2A+ runs on the latest NVIDIA H100 GPUs, roughly three times faster than the NVIDIA A100 GPUs. With an estimated 20 PetaFLOPS of raw compute power at FP64 Tensor Core precision, ASPIRE 2A+ is dedicated to Singapore’s artificial intelligence (AI) endeavors and will support research under the nation’s AI for Science program.
“We lean on the needs of the research community, and I think at this moment we are definitely seeing increased demand [for computing power],” said Dr Terence Hung, NSCC chief executive. “Going forward into the next few years, if demand continues to grow, we are likely to have to provide exascale computing. Whether we have that in a single system or through various collaborations, we are still trying to work out.”
One particularly significant project that the new supercomputers have been used for is the Third National Climate Change Study (V3). ASPIRE 2A and ASPIRE 2A+ were deployed to produce Southeast Asia’s highest-resolution climate projections by downscaling global climate models from 100km to 2km over Singapore. With better resolution, researchers are able to make more accurate predictions to inform the region’s climate policy.
“The rise of AI-based prediction and ‘hybrid’ physical and AI climate models represents a potential step change in Singapore’s capabilities to prepare for extreme weather and the broader impacts of climate change,” said Professor Dale Barker, Director of the Centre for Climate Research Singapore, National Environment Agency.
Looking ahead, NSCC Singapore has plans to launch the next supercomputer in the latter half of 2025. This system will be focused on bridging the gaps between classical supercomputing and quantum computing.
The organization also intends to use the NRF grant to support talent and skill development in Singapore’s high-performance computing industry. In collaboration with local universities, research institutes and private companies, NSCC will mentor and train talent to create new tools, applications and software.
“At NSCC, our value proposition goes beyond the bare metal hardware and technology we provide. In addition to our supercomputers, we are focusing on three key areas: expanding our HPC capacity and diversity, strengthening organizational and operational excellence, and cultivating talent and empowering our users to achieve greater breakthroughs,” said Hung.
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Source: National Supercomputing Centre Singapore ; Image: Pexels
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