AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) and technology partner Penguin Computing Inc., a
division of SMART Global Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: SGH), today
announced that New York University (NYU), Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT) and Rice University are the first universities
named to receive complete AMD-powered, high-performance computing
systems from the AMD HPC Fund for COVID-19 research. AMD also
announced it will contribute a cloud-based system powered by AMD
EPYC and AMD Radeon Instinct processors located on-site at Penguin
Computing, providing remote supercomputing capabilities for
selected researchers around the world. Combined, the donated
systems will collectively provide researchers with more than seven
petaflops of compute power that can be applied to fight COVID-19.
“High performance computing technology plays a critical role in
modern viral research, deepening our understanding of how specific
viruses work and ultimately accelerating the development of
potential therapeutics and vaccines,” said Lisa Su, president and
CEO, AMD. “AMD and our technology partners are proud to
provide researchers around the world with these new systems that
will increase the computing capability available to fight COVID-19
and support future medical research.”
The recipient universities are expected to utilize the new
compute capacity across a range of pandemic-related workloads
including genomics, vaccine development, transmission science and
modeling. Additionally, scientists from around the world conducting
COVID-19 research can request access to the remote AMD-powered
cloud HPC cluster at Penguin Computing by submitting proposals to
COVID-19HPC@amd.com.
University Engagement
The receiving universities are preparing their research plans
and infrastructure now to receive the systems, including defining
specific research projects that can have both immediate and
long-term impact.
NYU
“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on higher
education research, both in terms of its direction and the need for
immediate results, so the timing of this donation is particularly
fortuitous, and we’re tremendously grateful to AMD,” said Russel
Caflisch, director of the NYU Courant Institute of Mathematical
Sciences. “The computing resources donated by AMD will be put
to use by NYU researchers from a wide range of disciplines in
projects to address the many important facets of the COVID-19
crisis, including: discovery of drugs that may be therapeutic for
COVID-19 and future SARS virus mutations, retrieval of relevant
research results from the vast biomedical literature, analysis of
medical imaging for screening of patients, and analyzing political
attitudes and voting behavior in response to financial
hardships.”
MIT
"Across MIT we are engaged in work to address the global
COVID-19 pandemic, from that with immediate impact such as
modeling, testing, and treatment, to that with medium and longer
term impact such as discovery of new therapeutics and vaccines.
Nearly all of this work involves computing, and much of it requires
the kind of high performance computing that AMD is so generously
providing with this gift of a Petaflop machine," says Daniel
Huttenlocher, dean of the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing.
Rice
At the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, Rice
researcher José Onuchic is using his previous studies on influenza
A as a guide to explore how the coronavirus's surface proteins
facilitate entrance to human cells, the critical first step of
infection. Another scientist, Peter Wolynes, is using principles
from his foundational theories of protein folding to screen
thousands of drug molecules and identify the best candidates for
clinical tests based upon how well they bind to the virus's surface
proteins.
"The AMD gift will be truly transformational for Rice's
computational attack on COVID-19," said Peter Rossky, dean of
Rice's Wiess School of Natural Sciences. "We have the methods to
progress, but studies of large, complex systems are at the
cutting-edge of computational feasibility. The AMD contribution of
dedicated, state-of-the-art computational power will be a game
changer in accelerating progress toward defeating this virus."
AMD Ecosystem Partners
AMD has joined with well-known HPC and AI solutions firm Penguin
Computing to define, build, and deliver the on-premises systems and
Penguin’s Penguin on Demand (POD) cluster, powered by AMD. Penguin
Computing’s POD support will be collocated in data center space
donated by DataBank. Contributions from Penguin
Computing, NVIDIA, Gigabyte, and others are helping the AMD HPC
Fund advance COVID-19 research.
“Penguin Computing is looking forward to supporting and
contributing to the COVID-19 research efforts through this AMD
collaboration. We are committed to providing our applications and
technology expertise in high performance computing, artificial
intelligence and data analytics to both the University on-premises
and our remote POD cloud environments,” said Sid Mair, President,
Penguin Computing Inc.
“Ultra-fast data speeds and smart data-processing are key to
delivering insights that science demands, particularly in these
challenging times,” said Gilad Shainer, senior vice-president of
marketing for Mellanox networking at NVIDIA. “NVIDIA Mellanox HDR
200 gigabit InfiniBand solutions provide high data throughput,
extremely low latency, and application offload engines that
accelerate bio-science simulations and further the development of
treatments against the coronavirus.”
Gigabyte is supplying its G290-Z21 compute nodes for the Penguin
clusters, built around a single, 48-core AMD EPYC 7642 processor
paired with eight Radeon Instinct MI50 GPU accelerators. The system
R182-291 management nodes, also from Gigabyte, each utilize two
16-core, AMD EPYC 7302 processors.
AMD Commitment to COVID-19 Research
The AMD COVID-19 HPC fund was established to provide
research institutions with computing resources to accelerate
medical research on COVID-19 and other diseases. In addition to the
initial donations of $15 million of high-performance computing
systems, AMD has contributed technology and technical resources to
nearly double the peak system of the “Corona” system at
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory which is being used to
provide additional computing power for molecular modeling in
support of COVID-19 research.
Supporting Resources
- Video from AMD President and CEO, Lisa Su
- AMD response to COVID-19
- Submit a Proposal to access the Penguin Computing on Demand
cluster
About AMDFor more than 50 years AMD has driven
innovation in high-performance computing, graphics and
visualization technologies ― the building blocks for gaming,
immersive platforms and the datacenter. Hundreds of millions of
consumers, leading Fortune 500 businesses and cutting-edge
scientific research facilities around the world rely on AMD
technology daily to improve how they live, work and play. AMD
employees around the world are focused on building great products
that push the boundaries of what is possible. For more information
about how AMD is enabling today and inspiring tomorrow, visit the
AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) website, blog, Facebook and
Twitter pages.
Contacts:
Gary Silcott
AMD Communications
+1 512-602-0889
Gary.Silcott@amd.com
Jason Schmidt
AMD Investor Relations
+1 408-749-6688
Jason.Schmidt@amd.com
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