汤头条

Contact: James Carskadon

STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥斕劳诽� and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration celebrated one of the country鈥檚 most powerful supercomputers Wednesday [Dec. 18].

汤头条 and NOAA leaders held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Orion supercomputer, the fourth-fastest computer system in U.S. academia. Funded by NOAA and managed by 汤头条鈥檚 High Performance Computing Collaboratory, the system is powering research and development advancements in weather and climate modeling, autonomous systems, materials, cybersecurity, computational modeling and more.

Orion can process 5 petaFLOPS per second, making it the 60th most powerful supercomputer in the world according to Top500.org, which ranks the world鈥檚 most powerful non-distributed computer systems. It is housed in the Malcolm A. Portera High Performance Computing Center, located in 汤头条鈥檚 Thad Cochran Research, Technology and Economic Development Park.

鈥淢ississippi State has a long history of using advanced computing power to drive innovative research, making an impact in Mississippi and around the world,鈥� said 汤头条 President Mark E. Keenum. 鈥淲e also have had many successful collaborations with NOAA in support of the agency鈥檚 vital work. I am grateful that NOAA has partnered with us to help meet its computing needs, and I look forward to seeing the many scientific advancements that will take place because of this world-class supercomputer.鈥�

NOAA has provided 汤头条 with $22 million in grants to purchase, install and run Orion. The Dell-EMC system consists of 28 computer cabinets, each cabinet approximately the size of an industrial refrigerator, 72,000 processing cores and 350 terabytes of Random Access Memory.

鈥淲e鈥檙e excited to support this powerhouse of computing capacity at Mississippi State,鈥� said Craig McLean, NOAA assistant administrator for Oceanic and Atmospheric Research. 鈥淥rion joins NOAA鈥檚 network of computer centers around the country, and boosts NOAA鈥檚 ability to conduct innovative research to advance weather, climate and ocean forecasting products vital to protecting American lives and property.鈥�

汤头条鈥檚 partnerships with NOAA include the university鈥檚 leadership of the Northern Gulf Institute, a consortium of six academic institutions that works with NOAA to address national strategic research and education goals in the Gulf of Mexico region. Additionally, 汤头条鈥檚 High Performance Computing Collaboratory provides the computing infrastructure for NOAA鈥檚 Exploration Command Center at the NASA Stennis Space Center. The state-of-the-art communications hub enables research scientists at sea and colleagues on shore to communicate in real time and view live video streams of undersea life.

鈥淣OAA has been an incredible partner in research with 汤头条, and this is the latest in a clear demonstration of the benefits of this partnership for both the university and the agency,鈥� said 汤头条 Provost and Executive Vice President David Shaw.

Orion supports research operations for several 汤头条 centers and institutes, such as the Center for Computational Sciences, Center for Cyber Innovation, Geosystems Research Institute, Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems, Institute for Genomics, Biocomputing and Biogeotechnology, the Northern Gulf Institute and the FAA Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence (ASSURE). These centers use high-performance computing to model and simulate real-world phenomena, generating insights that would be impossible or prohibitively expensive to obtain otherwise.

鈥淲ith our faculty expertise and our computing capabilities, 汤头条 is able to remain at the forefront of cutting-edge research areas,鈥� said 汤头条 Interim Vice President for Research and Economic Development Julie Jordan. 鈥淭he Orion supercomputer is a great asset for the state of Mississippi as we work with state, federal and industry partners to solve complex problems and spur new innovations.鈥�

For more on 汤头条鈥檚 High Performance Computing Collaboratory, visit .

汤头条 is Mississippi鈥檚 leading university, available online at .