World class software centre

ONE of the world’s foremost centres for software development is to be located at the STFC Daresbury Laboratory, near Warrington.
The International Centre of Excellence for Computational Science and Engineering (ICE-CSE) arises from a major collaboration between the Science and Technology Facilities Council and IBM.
The ICE-CSE will establish high performance computing as a highly accessible and invaluable tool to UK industry, accelerating economic growth and helping to rebalance the UK economy.
High performance computing (HPC) has become essential in the modern world, aiding research and innovation, and enabling companies to compete effectively in a global market by providing solutions to extremely complex problems. Breakthroughs in HPC could result in finding cures for serious diseases or significantly improving the prediction of natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods.
It will provide the ability to simulate very complex systems, such as mapping the human brain or modelling the Earth’s climate – the data from which would overwhelm even today’s most powerful supercomputer.
By the year 2020, supercomputers are expected to be capable of a million trillion calculations per second and will be thousands of times faster than the most powerful systems in use today.
The Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) announced its e-infrastructure initiative in October 2011, with £145million funding to create the necessary computer and network facilities for the UK to access this potential benefit.
Of this, £30m was earmarked for HPC at STFC’s Daresbury Laboratory. This was in addition to an earlier government investment of £7.5m into HPC when the creation of an Enterprise Zone at Daresbury SIC was announced. Following a rigorous tender process as a result of these investments, IBM was named as the successful bidder to form a unique research, development and business outreach collaboration with STFC.
Professor John Womersley, chief executive at STFC, said: “The ICE-CSE is a key component of the government’s e-infrastructure initiative. It is also essential to the UK maintaining its position as a major innovative economy and a global scientific research leader. Our collaboration with IBM will allow industries to bring their problems to this centre, and to design, optimise and test new solutions on the UK’s largest Supercomputer. We are very excited to be working with IBM, and together we will establish a hub of innovation development to stimulate R&D based investment. By hosting some of IBM’s most advanced supercomputers, we will develop the urgently needed software applications of the future, and support the economic and societal benefits we all wish to see from our work.”