Researchers in Argonne’s Mathematics and Computer Science Division are playing lead roles in several focus areas of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Exascale Computing Project (ECP).

The ECP mission is to ​“accelerate delivery of an exascale computing ecosystem to provide breakthrough modeling and simulation solutions to address the most critical challenges in scientific discovery, energy assurance, economic competitiveness, and national security.”

Software Technology

The ECP Software Technology focus area is intended to enable researchers to write or adapt applications that can run reliably and efficiently on the new systems – which comprise millions of processor cores – while minimizing energy consumption. MCS Division staff are leading seven projects in this focus area:

• Exascale MPI: Principal Investigator Yanfei Guo
• Extreme-Scale Scientific Software Development Kit for the Exascale Computing Project: xSDK4ECP: Principal Investigator Lois Curfman McInnes
• Preparing PETSc/TAO for Exascale: Principal Investigator Todd Munson
• VeloC: Very Low Overhead Transparent Multilevel Checkpoint/Restart: Principal Investigator Franck Cappello
• EZ: Fast, Effective, Parallel Error-Bounded Exascale Lossy Compression for Scientific Data: Principal Investigator Franck Cappello
• Data Libraries and Services Enabling Exascale Science: Principal Investigator Rob Ross
• Argo: Operating System and Resource Management for Exascale: Principal Investigator Pete Beckman
• IDEAS-ECP - Advancing Software Productivity for Exascale Applications: Principal Investigator Lois Curfman McInnes

“These projects cover virtually the whole spectrum of challenges facing software developers as they strive to build a software stack that will work successfully at exascale. And the projects are well aligned with our goals in the MCS Division – to develop innovative computational tools and technology for transformative science,” said Valerie Taylor, MCS Division director.

Application Development

Software developers are also working hand in hand with MCS computer scientists, mathematicians, and software developers as part of the ECP efforts.

• Multiscale Coupled Urban Systems: Principal Investigator Charlie Catlett.
• Computing the Sky at Extreme Scales: Principal Investigator Salman Habib

Through the use of advanced computing, new modeling frameworks, and simulation, these projects offer the ability to achieve new scientific discoveries and gain greater understanding of our cities and our universe.

Co-Design Centers

Central to all the ECP efforts is co-design – the collaborative, interdisciplinary, and integrated development and evolution of hardware, software, and applications. Co-design is essential to ensuring that emerging exascale systems can be fully exploited to tackle DOE’s complex problems in science, engineering, energy, and security. MCS Division researchers are leading one of five co-design centers established by the ECP.

• Co-design Center for Online Data Analysis and Reduction at the Exascale (CODAR): Principal investigator Ian Foster; Deputy director and project manager Todd Munson

“We are proud to be part of this major ECP initiative,” said Taylor. ​“The MCS Division has a long track record of providing technical leadership in the computing sciences – including extreme computing, data-intensive science, and applied mathematics – and in tackling the most important scientific problems of our nation. We look forward to applying our expertise and in working with the other ECP-funded groups to ensure the success of this critical national project.”

For more information on ECP, see the website http://​exas​calepro​ject​.org/.