SCIAMA Supercomputer
The SCIAMA supercomputer is at the heart of the University of Portsmouth’s Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation (ICG) – a research institute devoted to cosmology, galaxy evolution and gravitation.
SCIAMA is a High Performance Compute Cluster (HPCC) which is supported by ICG, SEPnet and the University of Portsmouth. It was built in 2011 to provide computational resources for scientific research carried out at the ICG. The supercomputer was named after Dennis Sciama, a leading figure in the development of astrophysics and cosmology, but it's also an acronym that stands for SEPnet Computing Infrastructure for Astrophysical Modelling and Analysis.
The facility is used by postgraduate and undergraduate students, researchers and external partners. The supercomputer is able to complete a billion calculations per second, simulate vast regions of the Universe, investigate the properties of hundreds of millions of galaxies, and has been used to run complex cosmological experiments and simulations, such as:
- Primordial galaxy formation
- Supermassive black hole simulations
- Birthing of the galactic quasars
Equipment
The SCIAMA supercomputer is made up of:
- 4228 cores
- 1.8 PB Lustre storage
- 4 A100 GPUs
- Specialised CPUs with 350 active nodes per board
- 8 login nodes
- 179 compute nodes
- 1 application (JupyterHub) node.
- 35 cabinets
- A mixed cooling system, including extractor fans and chilled water cooling from a nearby water reservoir
For University of Portsmouth researchers
The cluster is available for use by University of Portsmouth researchers. Read more about using SCIAMA or apply for an account.
Where to find us
Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation
Dennis Sciama Building
Burnaby Road
Portsmouth
PO1 3FX