The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC), in collaboration with Intel, Dell Technologies, and Nvidia, has announced the creation of Cardinal, a new high-performance computing (HPC) cluster designed to drive innovation in artificial intelligence (AI) in the fields of research and science. This cutting-edge system reflects the state of Ohio’s ongoing commitment to technological advancement, offering state-of-the-art HPC resources to academic and industrial researchers.
Named after Ohio’s state bird, Cardinal is set to be launched in the second half of 2024. This cluster will replace the Owens system, launched in 2016, and is expected to more than double OSC’s capabilities in processing and handling complex data, especially in AI applications.
The new cluster is equipped with 756 Intel® Xeon® CPU Max Series 9470 processors, providing a total of 39,312 CPU cores, and will feature 128 gigabytes (GB) of HBM2e memory and 512 GB of DDR5 memory per node. This advanced configuration will allow OSC to address a wider range of scientific and academic use cases, facilitating the adoption and efficient deployment of new computing technologies.
Additionally, Cardinal will include thirty-two nodes each equipped with 104 cores, 1 terabyte (TB) of memory, and four Nvidia Hopper H100 Tensor Core GPUs, interconnected by four NVLink connections. This design will enable the cluster to achieve up to 500 petaflops of peak AI performance, which is essential for scientific applications that require significant processing power.
David Hudak, executive director of OSC, emphasized the significance of this advancement: “With Cardinal’s technology, we can empower an increasing number of disciplines using HPC for research and innovation, foster the expanded use of AI and machine learning, and serve the growing number of higher education classrooms using OSC resources to train the workforce of the future.”
This cluster not only reinforces Ohio’s leadership in high-performance computing at the national level but also sets a new standard in shared HPC infrastructure, aligning with the growing needs of the academic and industrial community.
The launch of Cardinal is a testament to OSC and its technological partners’ commitment to ensuring that Ohio maintains its international competitiveness in the areas of HPC and AI. This collaborative effort will not only benefit the academic sector but also drive innovation in various industries within the state, marking a significant milestone on the path towards the future of high-performance computing.