GPU Supercomputing Accelerates China's Solar Energy Research

SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwire - Jun 9, 2011) - Chinese researchers have run the world's highest performing molecular simulation to examine improved techniques for more efficient production and use of crystalline silicon, a key material used in solar panels and the semiconductor industry.

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Process Engineering (CAS-IPE) used Tianhe-1A, the world's fastest supercomputer, to perform a simulation on NVIDIA® Tesla™ GPUs that was five times the performance and more than twice the size of the previous highest-performing molecular simulation. The simulation modeled the behavior of 110 billion atoms at an unprecedented 1.87 petaflops of performance. The previous record for a simulation of this kind was 49 billion atoms at 369 teraflops of performance.¹

"Computer simulations are critical to the study of new materials and production methods as it can reveal far more details than experimental measurements, at much less cost," said Dr. Wenlai Huang, research associate at CAS-IPE. "The levels of performance we achieved by using all 7,168 NVIDIA GPUs in the Tianhe-1A supercomputer enabled us to run simulations that come closer than ever to reproducing the behavior of the material in different aspects and its true bulk properties under different conditions, which are more meaningful for engineering and industrial purposes."

Tianhe-1A, located at the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin, China, was named the world's fastest supercomputer in November 2010 by the Top 500 organization, the first time the title was given to a Chinese supercomputing center. In addition to the CAS-IPE led research, it is being used to explore the areas of oil exploration, drug discovery and weather modeling.

CAS-IPE research in this field is ongoing and new world records in the sustainable performance of molecular dynamics simulations are expected by the institute. Members of the CAS-IPE research team will present this research at the upcoming GPU Tech Conference (GTC) in San Jose, CA, May 14-17, 2012, and at GTC China taking place December 15-16, 2011 in Beijing.

About NVIDIA
NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) awakened the world to the power of computer graphics when it invented the GPU in 1999. Since then, it has consistently set new standards in visual computing with breathtaking, interactive graphics available on devices ranging from tablets and portable media players to notebooks and workstations. NVIDIA's expertise in programmable GPUs has led to breakthroughs in parallel processing which make supercomputing inexpensive and widely accessible. The Company holds more than 1,800 patents worldwide, including ones covering designs and insights that are essential to modern computing. For more information, see www.nvidia.com.

Certain statements in this press release including, but not limited to, statements as to: the availability, benefits and impact of NVIDIA Tesla GPUs; and the impact of the company's patents on modern computing; 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: our reliance on third parties to manufacture, assemble, package and test our products; global economic conditions; development of faster or more efficient technology; the impact of technological development and competition; design, manufacturing or software defects; changes in consumer preferences or demands; 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, or SEC, including its Form 10-Q for the fiscal period ended May 1, 2011. Copies of reports filed with the SEC are posted on the company's 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.

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¹ Source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cpe.1483/abstract