Supercomputer arrives in Danville

Danville could become an innovation hub now that a supercomputer moved in, enabling better private sector access to the technology.

The Cray XMT supercomputer arrived in downtown Danville last week for the new Center for Applied High Performance Computing located in Old Belt No. 1, a former tobacco warehouse, on Bridge Street, Gil Miller, corporate vice president and chief technology officer for Noblis, told the Southern Piedmont Technology Council’s “Tech Bunch for Lunch” on Tuesday.

The next-generation supercomputer is the first outside of a federal lab or university, and only about a dozen exist in the world. That fits with the center’s mission of taking high performance computing out of the lab and into the field to solve real problems in novel ways, Miller said.

Noblis, a nonprofit science, technology and strategy firm, operates the supercomputer and so far has two staffers ramping up the computing center. The next step is “racing” the XMT against other supercomputers for comparison, Miller said.

Then the supercomputer would take on work for Noblis’ existing customers, possibly to find solutions for “big data problems” in the areas of transportation systems or bioinformatics (applying computer science and information technology to biology and medicine), said Danville site leader William Mitchell. The center will build a software team to develop general purpose software to support a range of problem domains.

“It’s pure opportunity,” Mitchell said.

The high performance computing center would like to work with startups or small businesses on developing services and applications for the XMT. The multithreaded architecture of the XMT allows for graph analytics or sifting through large amounts of data to “connect the dots” or find the “needle in the haystack.”

“We’re bringing a unique type of technical professional to the region and creating a broader opportunity by being in the startup incubator space,” Mitchell said.

Center staff will be added as the research and work for the supercomputer grows. Miller would like to have 15 employees, mostly software developers and mathematicians, on-site at within three years.

“I think it’s going to be a great thing,” said Gary Tucker, professor of computer science and mathematics at Averett University.

Tucker said having the supercomputer in a private setting makes it easier and profitable for the private sector to do high performance computing, and it essentially levels the playing field between small and larger companies. He believes that would attract firms that need access to the technology to the area.

While the supercomputer itself is neat, the information coming out of it is what’s truly exciting, Tucker said, as it could be used to impact people’s lives.

For instance, supercomputers are used in weather prediction, new car designs or newly developed drugs, he added.

“We all benefit from supercomputers every day,” Tucker said.