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Mira’s Débutante Ball

By Rob Mitchum // July 3, 2013

Even the world’s fastest supercomputers need some time to prep themselves to join society. After eight months of construction and nearly a year of early research projects testing out its capabilities, the 10-petaflop IBM Blue Gene/Q system finally made its official public bow this Monday in a dedication ceremony at the suburban Argonne campus. At the event, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin said that the current fifth-fastest supercomputer in the world will allow Argonne and the United States as a whole to continue pushing the boundaries of science and reaping the benefits of research.

“Mira ensures the lab remains a linchpin of scientific research, enabling researchers to tackle extremely complex challenges ranging from improving combustion efficiency in car engines to modeling the progression of deadly diseases in the human body,” Durbin said. “High-performance computing is crucial to U.S. economic growth and competitiveness, saving time, money and energy, boosting our national security and strengthening our economy.  If the United States is to remain a leader in the 21st century, we need to continue investing in the science and innovation that will address our growing energy and environmental demands while building the industries of the future.”

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The types of projects that will run on the now fully-active Mira demonstrate how the applications of high-performance computing are broader than ever. Beyond more traditional uses in cosmology and physics — such as a simulation of the universe’s expansion or climate modeling — Mira’s 786,000 processors will also be put to work on models of cellular and viral proteins and testing designs for energy-efficient engineering.

“As supercomputers continue to improve, so do the results. Faster and more sophisticated computers mean better simulations and more accurate predictions,” said CI Senior Fellow Rick Stevens. “Mira will help us tackle increasingly complex problems, achieve faster times to solutions and create more robust models of everything from car engines to the human body.”

For more information about Mira and the dedication ceremony, visit the story from the Argonne Newsroom or watch the video below.