NCSA News

ACCESS MAGAZINE - FALL 2011

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Transforming computing

NCSA Director Thom Dunning is excited about partnering with Cray on the Blue Waters project, and by the capability and performance of the system that Cray will provide.

GPUs: Path into the future

With the announcement of a new Blue Waters petascale system that includes a considerable amount of GPU capability, it is clear GPUs are the future of supercomputing. Access magazine's Barbara Jewett recently sat down with Wen-mei Hwu, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Illinois, a co-principal investigator on the Blue Waters project, and an expert in computer architecture, especially GPUs.

Catch the wave

Modeling and simulation using NCSA resources help scientists advance work with supernovas.

Behind the scenes of NCSA: Blue Waters

Every day, over 60 people at the center use their technical knowledge and expertise to deal with the thousands of minute details involved in a project of this magnitude. Their eyes are on the ultimate goal: providing an incredible computing resource for the nation's scientists and engineers in 2012.

From Alliant to Forge

NCSA supercomputers support years of steel research.

Different strokes for different folks

Simulations using NCSA's Abe help psychologists better understand how human beings carve out cultural niches.

Breaking business models

Almost as soon as NCSA opened, the center began collaborating with companies.

User reflections: Al Valocchi

Longtime NCSA partner Al Valocchi reflects back on 25 years of working with the center's resources.

Leap to whole-cell simulations

Researchers have built a computer model of the crowded interior of a bacterial cell that—in a test of its response to sugar in its environment—accurately simulates the behavior of living cells.

Bigger isn't better

Researchers team up to get a closer, longer look at the actions of smaller biological structures by preparing the AMBER code to take advantage of Blue Waters.

News & notes

NCSA adds systems, retires others | NCSA leads project on science gateway security | Illinois launches Parallel Computing Institute | Snir chosen to lead division of Argonne | NCSA Director Dunning elected ACS Fellow | NCSA awarded $7.7 million for DES data managment | Visualization team aids original movie | Koric, Thomas, receive IDC Innovation Award

View previous Access Magazine issues from: 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006

CONTACTS

The NCSA Public Affairs team is led by Trish Barker.

Members of the media should contact Trish Barker.

For questions/comments related to Access magazine, contact Barbara Jewett.