Open for science

released 09.22.10

Less than two years after breaking ground, the University of Illinois' National Petascale Computing Facility was completed and ready for occupancy in June. The facility will be home for the Blue Waters sustained-petascale supercomputer when it comes online. The facility is a national asset, providing the infrastructure needed for NCSA's supercomputers and other hardware for decades to come. The National Petascale Computing Facility's data center will have room for the Blue Waters supercomputer, an archive that will be as large as 500 petabytes, other supercomputers, and the necessary hardware that goes with them.

The National Petascale Computing Facility's electrical service is world class. Power usage effectiveness—determined by dividing the amount of power entering a data center by the amount of power being delivered to the computer infrastructure inside it—will be about 1.1 to 1.2. A typical data center rating is often between 1.4 to 2.0.

About 70 percent of the year, cooling tanks—built right into the profile of the building—will chill water by evaporating water in the outside air. That means significantly less electricity will be used for cooling water-cooled supercomputers.

The National Petascale Computing Facility will support both air- and water-cooled supercomputers. Water cooling will make the Blue Waters supercomputer substantially more energy efficient. These pipes are part of the water cooling system.

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