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Super boost for artificial intelligence research
6 July 2018
Artificial intelligence research bolstered by new supercomputer
The University of Sydney has regenerated its supercomputing infrastructure with the commissioning of Artemis 3, a new supercomputer that will support ongoing research into artificial intelligence (AI) and humanoid robotics.
The High-Performance Computing (HPC) system has been provided by Dell EMC, leveraging the company’s PowerEdge C4140 server technology.
It will replace the existing Artemis 2 supercomputing system last upgraded in 2016, tripling resources and adding in extremely large memory nodes.
With its aim to explore of new horizons in AI, the UBTECH Sydney Artificial Intelligence Centre will be utilising Artemis 3’s capability to power AI and machine learning workloads, allowing for faster processing of data to provide answers to scientific questions previously beyond reach.
“The UBTECH Sydney Artificial Intelligence Centre is a multidisciplinary effort committed to solving some of the major challenges found in the fields of AI and robotics research,” said Professor Dacheng Tao, Director of the UBTECH Sydney Artificial Intelligence Centre.
“The capabilities offered by Artemis 3, including its ability to process large amounts of data, will add a new dimension to our research infrastructure and support our vision of becoming a leading global hub in this area.”
The University chose to continue its partnership with Dell EMC to complete the upgrade, following a competitive selection process.
“As we’ve built up our capacity to operate and deliver high quality high performance computing, Dell EMC has become a trusted partner,” said Dr Jeremy Hammond, Director of Strategic Ventures.
“The company has supported us in our pursuit of becoming a renowned HPC centre and worked closely with our team to put together a supercomputer that meets our diverse needs.”
Artemis 3 will also support a wide range of other projects both within the School of Information Technologies and across the University, including those in the fields of geophysics and cosmology.
Artemis 3 is comprised of 49 PowerEdge C6420 nodes, equipped with two 24-core Intel Xeon-SP CPUs per node, along with 27 PowerEdge C4140 nodes, each of which is outfitted two Xeon CPUs plus four NVIDIA V100 GPUs. The nodes are connected via FDR InfiniBand. External storage is provided by a 700 TB Lustre file system.
