Fujitsu has received an order from the Information Initiative Center of Hokkaido University for an interdisciplinary, large-scale computing system with a theoretical peak performance of 4.0 petaflops, consisting of a supercomputer system and a cloud system. The system is expected to begin operations in December 2018.
The system’s supercomputer system is comprised of approximately 1,300 of Fujitsu’s x86 servers, including the latest model, the Fujitsu Server PRIMERGY CX2550 M4. The cloud system is equipped with x86 servers installed at Hokkaido University as well as multiple remote locations throughout Japan, now from Hokkaido to Kyushu, that connects to the SINET5(2) academic backbone network, making it a nationwide wide-area distributed cloud system. As such, it can be used for research relating to distributed systems, such as networks and the Internet of Things.
In addition to using the system for R&D relating to computational science and computer science, the Information Initiative Center of Hokkaido University will use it to provide computing resources to HPCI(3) and JHPCN(4), thereby broadly providing the system to researchers throughout Japan, including those at private companies, and contributing to advancements in all kinds of fields. With Japan’s top high-performance computing technology, Fujitsu will provide powerful support for the activities of the Information Initiative Center of Hokkaido University as well as other research endeavors in Japan.
Background to the Deployment of the New System
Hokkaido University, the largest university in Hokkaido, is a national university that is driving education and research. The Information Initiative Center of Hokkaido University provides an academic information platform as a national joint-use facility for academic research by university faculty members, graduate students, and researchers throughout Japan.
The Information Initiative Center of Hokkaido University currently operates the Hokkaido University Academic Cloud, which is comprised of an interdisciplinary large-scale computing system that includes a supercomputer system and a cloud system, and petabyte-class data science unified cloud storage.. To upgrade its interdisciplinary large-scale computing system to the Hokkaido University High-Performance Inter-Cloud, it is building both a supercomputer system that will improve the processing performance of the existing system by over 20 times, and a nationwide wide-area distributed cloud system that can also be used for research on clouds and networks. It will further advance uses and research in such existing areas as scientific and technological simulations, AI, big data, and data science, and will provide an environment that can meet an even broader range of needs as people are trained to use the large-scale computing system for groundbreaking research.
