Every year, the RTU supercomputer becomes more powerful. Lauris Cikovskis, head of the High Performance Computing Center (HPC) of RTU, explained:
"A supercomputer consists of several parts. There are computing nodes, which are separate servers, and there is one main node that monitors it so that everything works, to know at each moment what is busy and where are free resources. Computing nodes are connected together with a very fast computer network. This ensures that we can distribute one computational task over many computing nodes, and thus achieve a faster result."
In order for the supercomputer to function, it is provided with a stable power supply and cooling. The supercomputer works non-stop, with both local scientists and researchers from around the world performing a wide variety of computing tasks at the same time.
Cikovskis continued:
"In daily mode, there is a virtual line in which researchers submit their tasks to be performed. The first to submit is the first to get the computing resource."
This supercomputer is also used by scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, to help calculate the collisions of elementary particles when simulating the Big Bang at very high energies, as well as in various other scientific projects.
RTU's leading researcher Ilmārs Slaidiņš said: "We are in a single network, we can also use other countries' big computers, which are much more powerful, 1,000 times more powerful than what we have here at RTU. If we need very complex calculations, we can apply them to perform tasks."
The use of supercomputers around the world is becoming increasingly widespread, and they are being made bigger and more powerful, some even occupying the area of several tennis courts.
Slaidiņš added:
"Artificial intelligence is trained by a supercomputer. Once it is trained, it can operate more easily. Do you notice that the weather forecast is much more accurate now than it was 5-10 years ago? We can predict that in an hour it's going to rain. It's all done by supercomputers."
On the other hand, Cikovskis pointed out: "Currently, there is a one million genome project in Europe, where Latvia is also expected to analyze several thousand genomes of the population of Latvia."
The Data Center of the Riga Technical University says that the computing power even of this supercomputer is becoming insufficient and will inevitably have to be improved and supplemented over time, gradually building more and more powerful supercomputers.
