ANSYS, Saudi Aramco, and KAUST have achieved a new supercomputing milestone, though specific details about the achievement are not provided in the content. The announcement references KAUST Discovery. The mention of King Abdullah suggests a connection to the university's founding. Why it matters: Such milestones could enhance research capabilities and innovation in the region, particularly in areas relevant to Saudi Aramco's interests.
KAUST's Core Labs provide engineering simulation services and training using state-of-the-art technology. The Supercomputing Core Lab (KSL) at KAUST conducts training workshops in partnership with ANSYS, a market leader in engineering and simulation design software. Since 2017, KSL has conducted five training workshops related to engineering software in partnership with ANSYS, with 230 attendees, including 138 individuals from in-Kingdom institutions outside of KAUST. Why it matters: These workshops strengthen Saudi Arabia's engineering capabilities by providing access to simulation software and training, facilitating collaboration between KAUST, Saudi Aramco, and SABIC.
KAUST's supercomputer Shaheen completed ultra-resolution subsurface mapping simulations for Saudi Aramco, producing a 3D image of subsurface geologic layers at a 7.5-meter resolution. Aramco scientists used integrated GeoDRIVE software to achieve this record resolution at a production scale, improving on prior simulations with tens of meters resolution. Shaheen, located in the KAUST Supercomputing Core Laboratory, is one of the largest CPU-based supercomputers globally, featuring 12,348 Intel Haswell CPUs. Why it matters: This achievement enables more precise resource extraction and geological understanding in the Arabian Peninsula, demonstrating the growing capabilities of regional supercomputing for industrial applications.
KAUST's Supercomputing Core Lab (KSL) aims to advance science and technology through HPC solutions. The article highlights the lab's mission to inspire scientific, economic, and social progress. It mentions KAUST Ph.D. students and computational scientists at the SC16 supercomputing conference. Why it matters: This showcases KAUST's commitment to high-performance computing and its role in driving innovation in the region.
KAUST and Cerebras Systems collaborated on multi-dimensional seismic processing using the Condor Galaxy AI supercomputer, achieving record sustained memory bandwidth of 92.58 petabytes per second. They developed a Tile Low-Rank Matrix-Vector Multiplication (TLR-MVM) kernel to exploit the architecture of Cerebras CS-2 systems. This work was recognized as a finalist for the 2023 Gordon Bell Prize. Why it matters: This demonstrates the potential of AI-customized architectures for seismic processing, with broader implications for climate modeling and other scientific domains in the region and globally.