A new supercomputer is designed to support researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in developing new materials more quickly, for example for medical or energy research.
(Bild: Amadeus Bramsiepe, KIT)
A high-performance computer for materials research was put into operation at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT): With the €1.2 million computer, researchers can simulate the structural composition of future materials and thus examine their properties before they actually exist. This enables scientists to develop new materials that can be used in medicine or energy research, for example. One example is the membrane in the rapid corona tests, which has been improved by new computer models.
“The simulation calculations generate huge amounts of data, for example about the material behavior under special conditions. With modern data science applications, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, we can gain knowledge about the properties of materials and thus develop new materials much faster,” says Britta Nestler, Professor for Microstructure Simulation at the Institute for Applied Materials of KIT.
The high-performance computer is located in the Materials Science Center for Energy Research (MZE) on the South Campus of KIT. Half of it was financed from the structure and innovation fund of the state of Baden-Württemberg. As the KIT reports, the computing power should be comparable to that of 10,000 laptops. “This computing power enables us to develop new simulation methods even faster,” says Nestler. This includes, in particular, multiphysics methods for microstructure simulation on high-performance computers, for data analysis to predict material-property relationships or the further development of the software for material simulations on high-performance computers developed in Karlsruhe.
