TAIPEI, TAIWAN--(Marketwire - December 14, 2009) - A research team at National Taiwan
University (
NTU) is achieving
breakthrough results in learning about the early evolution of the universe
by harnessing
NVIDIA® Tesla™ parallel processors -- which provide the
computational horsepower of an IBM BlueGene/L supercomputer, at just 1% the
cost and 10% the power consumption.
The team, led by Ting-Wai Chiu, Professor of Physics and Associate Director
of the Center for Quantum Science and Engineering (
CQSE), is studying the interactions
of sub-atomic particles, to learn about the origins of the universe, which
requires enormous computational power.
NTU is carrying out this work on the first GPU-based supercomputer in
Taiwan, the 128-GPU cluster at CQSE, which uses 16 NVIDIA Tesla S1070 1U
systems and 64 Tesla C1060 processors. The system plays a key role in
large-scale computations for quantum physics, ranging from the strong
interaction at the subatomic scale to the strongly correlated electrons in
condensed matter physics, and to the cosmology at the astronomical scale.
"We are excited to see our GPU-based cluster outperform many conventional
supercomputers in both cost and energy use," said Chiu. "With our
GPU-enabled supercomputer, we are delivering 15 teraflops at a price of
US$200,000, 1% the cost of a conventional supercomputer like IBM
BlueGene/L."
"It's deeply rewarding to see NVIDIA Tesla GPUs helping professionals and
researchers achieve amazing breakthroughs in their work," said Andy Keane,
general manager, Tesla business, NVIDIA. "The exceptional speed-up being
seen by NTU has the ability to dramatically accelerate the research into
one of life's biggest and most complex scientific challenges."
NVIDIA Tesla GPUs are based on CUDA™, NVIDIA's computing architecture
that enables its GPUs to be programmed using industry standard programming
languages and APIs, opening up their massive parallel processing power to a
broad range of applications beyond graphics. The CQSE has developed highly
efficient CUDA-optimized codes for the computationally challenging problems
in QCD, quantum spin systems, and astrophysics.
In addition, the lattice QCD group (TWQCD) based at National Taiwan
University is now the first group in the world to use a GPU cluster to
perform large-scale simulations of lattice QCD with exact chiral symmetry.
For more information about NVIDIA Tesla GPUs, please visit:
www.nvidia.com/tesla
About NVIDIA
NVIDIA (
NASDAQ:
NVDA) awakened the world to the power of computer graphics
when it invented the graphics processing unit (GPU) in 1999. Since then, it
has consistently set new standards in visual computing with breathtaking,
interactive graphics available on devices ranging from portable media
players to notebooks to workstations. NVIDIA's expertise in programmable
GPUs has led to breakthroughs in parallel processing which make
supercomputing inexpensive and widely accessible. Fortune magazine has
ranked NVIDIA #1 in innovation in the semiconductor industry for two years
in a row. For more information, see
www.nvidia.com.
© 2009 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved. NVIDIA, the NVIDIA logo,
CUDA, and Tesla are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of NVIDIA
Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Other company and product
names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are
associated. Features, pricing, availability, and specifications are subject
to change without notice.
Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to,
statements as to: the benefits, features, impact, performance and
capabilities of NVIDIA Tesla technology and CUDA architecture are
forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that
could cause results to be materially different than expectations. Important
factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include:
development of more efficient or faster technology; design, manufacturing
or software defects; the impact of technological development and
competition; changes in consumer preferences and demands; customer adoption
of different standards or our competitor's products; changes in industry
standards and interfaces; unexpected loss of performance of our products or
technologies when integrated into systems as well as other factors detailed
from time to time in the reports NVIDIA files with the Securities and
Exchange Commission including its Form 10-Q for the fiscal period ended
October 25, 2009. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on our
website and are available from NVIDIA without charge. These forward-looking
statements are not guarantees of future performance and speak only as of
the date hereof, and, except as required by law, NVIDIA disclaims any
obligation to update these forward-looking statements to reflect future
events or circumstances.
Contact Information: For more information, contact:
Andrew Humber
NVIDIA Corporation
+1 (408) 486-8138
ahumber@nvidia.com