A group of UT students got hands on experience with the university’s supercomputer, the Kraken.
The opportunity for the undergraduates to use the Kraken was made possible by the Joint Institute for Computational Sciences, an institute established by UT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The organization offers expertise from UT faculty as well as national laboratory staff to provide a top educational experience.
“We were able to process information on (the Kraken) that we might not be able to process anywhere else,” David Prenshaw, sophomore in computer science, said.
Prenshaw and more than 30 other students in the data structures and algorithm analysis class, offered through the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, got to use the machine.
Prenshaw said he and his fellow students had to go through a training period before they were allowed to use the powerful machine. Afterward the class used the Kraken as part of their class lab activities.
Recently, the Kraken was ranked sixth on the Top500 list of the world’s most powerful computers, which was created by UT distinguished professor Jack Dongarra.
“It provides enormous capability for academic researchers in the U.S. to explore problems and issues of national importance,” said Phil Andrews, director of the National Institute for Computational Sciences.
At its peak performance, the supercomputer operates at the equivalent of more than 60,000 personal computers, Andrews said. An upgrade slated for later this year will increase the Kraken’s power to the equivalent of 100,000 individual computers — advancing it to the first academic computer to reach that capability.
David Banks, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, led the class and feels it is important for undergraduates to get first-hand experience with powerful technology such as the Kraken.
“A machine like Kraken offers a glimpse of the kind of computing that will be standard in a decade: thousands of processing cores working simultaneously,” Banks said.
Andrews echoed Banks, “Out of today’s undergraduates will come tomorrow’s Nobel Prize laureates: We have to ensure they see the possibilities of high performance computing in solving the toughest problems confronting humanity,” he said.
