The National Science Foundation has approved grants worth a combined $16.2 million to fund the acquisition of two new supercomputers for the open science research community.The foundation said Nov. 24 that it allocated $9.6 million for the purchase of the Bridges advanced computing system to be housed at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, co-founded by Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.
PSC intends to use Bridges to work on large data sets in genetics, the humanities and the natural sciences.
NSF will provide a further $6.6 million for the Jetstream high-performance computing system, which will be co-located at Indiana University and the University of Texas.
The Jetstream cloud system will be designed to fill the advanced computational and data analysis needs of researchers in biology, observational astronomy, atmospheric science and the social sciences.
“Bridges and Jetstream offer a mix of new capabilities and usage modalities, from large memory nodes to virtualization technologies that allow a PC-like experience via the cloud,†said Irene Qualters, division director for advanced cyberinfrastructure at NSF.
“Together, these technologies will let a broader swath of researchers use [advanced] computing while making new kinds of scientific inquiry possible.”
The foundation said both resources will become operational in 2016 under NSF’s Extreme Digital project.
