Oklahoma State University to Build New Supercomputer With NSF Funding

The National Science Foundation has awarded Oklahoma State University $4 million to develop a new supercomputer that is expected to be the largest in the state. OSU will contribute $1.7 million to the effort, which aims to produce a machine that will exceed the technological capabilities of the institution’s current supercomputer. The NSF funding was awarded under the Major Research Instrumentation program, the OSU website reported.

Pratul Agarwal, director of OSU’s High Performance Computing Center, said in an interview that the upcoming computer, to be located at the institution’s campus in Stillwater, will help address research challenges in multiple fields. He also explained the value of supercomputing resources, noting the need to process large amounts of data in real time, which cannot be performed by conventional equipment.

The OSU award is the latest among the efforts by the National Science Foundation to expand access to supercomputers. In April, the NSF approved $7.5 million in funding for the Resource Allocations Marketplace and Platform Services project. Led by the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center, the RAMPS project seeks to award user time on supercomputers belonging to the NSF network. RAMPS is part of the NSF’s Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem Services and Support program, which oversees the overall management of resources and infrastructure related to supercomputers.

Outside of the academe, supercomputers are being used by federal civilian agencies for a variety of purposes, including weather modeling and nuclear physics research. Supercomputers have also been used for coronavirus research.