Mississippi State Climbs Supercomputing Ranks

August 14, 2014

Mississippi State University is again ranked as a leading academic supercomputing site, according to Top500, an international organization dedicated to cataloging the world's most powerful computer systems. Named "Shadow," Mississippi State's newest Cray supercomputer is the 11th fastest academic system in the United States with an overall ranking of No. 185 on TOP500.org's latest Top500 Supercomputer Site list.

Located at MSU's High Performance Computing Collaboratory, Shadow is the primary high-performance computing asset for shared research at the university, and supports the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems, Center for Computational Sciences, Geosystems Research Institute, Northern Gulf Institute, Center for Battlefield Innovations, Institute for Genomics, Biocomputing and Biotechnology and Distributed Analytics and Security Institute.

Trey Breckenridge, Director of High Performance Computing, says dating back to 1996, MSU has had a computer system on 19 of the last 37 Top500 lists. And that there is a long-standing commitment to providing powerful, technologically advanced resources for the researchers.

The Cray system runs a broad set of applications, including fluid dynamics, structural mechanics, materials modeling, astrophysics, molecular modeling, transportation modeling and planning, weather and ocean modeling, geographic information systems, genomics and bioinformatics. Shadow is ten times faster than the university's pervious fastest system and consumes far less energy. The system features an innovative, liquid-cooled design that uses warm water heat exchangers instead of chillers to directly cool the computer's processors and memory, allowing for a more efficient removal of system heat.

To view the full article, please see: Mississippi State University News.