Dear reader,
it can execute one quadrillion computing operations per second and it is the new research supercomputer ForHLR II. With pocket calculators that would take the 24,000 students of KIT about 5000 years to accomplish. Thus with the ForHLR II begins the petaflop era at KIT. You will find a detailed report on the architecture of the computing cluster, the visualization system and the energy-efficient operation on page 8. The photo gallery in the center of this magazine shows impressions of its festive inauguration with Science Minister Theresia Bauer, Holger Hanselka, president of KIT and Peter Gumbsch, prominent advocate of the ForHLR and member of the Board of the German council of Science and Humanities.
The new supercomputer fits ”precisely in the umbrella strategy KIT 2025”, explains Holger Hanselka in his welcoming speech at the inauguration. Scientists from all over Germany can now run complex applications at new orders of magnitude. Not only researchers benefit from the “fascinating applications that are possible based on the ForHLR, as The Research University in the Helmholtz Association we want to pass on knowledge gained with the supercomputer, directly to our students”, underlines Hanselka.
Under the heading of Research and Projects we present the research and development of a new model to quantify the reliability of architectures for bit preservation. Bit preservation is a basic building block of a sustainable long-term data archive (page 18).
Modern art that accompanies research and technology is presented in this issue of SCC-News on page 28: The ”Growing Stone” by Timm Ulrichs is one of the artwork at KIT, which helps to create a special atmosphere and stimulates our imagination in research, teaching and innovation – anew, every day.
Happy reading of SCC-News
Hannes Hartenstein, Bernhard Neumair, Achim Streit