FLC | NCAR joins COVID-19 HPC Consortium

NCAR joins COVID-19 HPC Consortium

April 9, 2020

The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is joining the Department of Energy's COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium by providing one of the nation's leading supercomputers to help research the deadly pandemic caused by the COVID-19 virus.

The NCAR-operated Cheyenne supercomputer, a 5.34-petaflop machine that ranks among the world's 50 fastest, will be available to scientists across the country who are working to glean insights into the novel coronavirus that has spread worldwide. Researchers are mounting a massive effort to learn more about the behavior of the virus, such as transmission patterns and whether it is affected by seasonal changes, even as they work toward the development of treatments and vaccines.

"Advanced computing technology is crucial for better understanding the spread and behavior of COVID-19 and helping to protect society from this deadly virus," said NCAR Director Everette Joseph. "We are very pleased that the Cheyenne supercomputer will contribute to this critical effort."

The Cheyenne supercomputer, built by SGI (now Hewlett Packard Enterprise), is one of the world's leading supercomputers for Earth system sciences. It is funded by the National Science Foundation, which is NCAR's sponsor, and by the State of Wyoming through an appropriation to the University of Wyoming. The system is housed at the NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center in Cheyenne, and it encompasses tens of petabytes of storage capacity in addition to the supercomputer.