Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative
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The Advanced Simulation and Computing Program (or ASC) is a super-computing program run by the National Nuclear Security Administration, in order to simulate, test, and maintain the United States nuclear stockpile. The program was created in 1995 in order to support the . The goal of the initiative is to extend the lifetime of the current aging stockpile.
After the United States' 1992 moratorium on live nuclear testing, the Stockpile Stewardship Program was created in order to find a way to test, and maintain the nuclear stockpile. In response, the National Nuclear Security Administration began to simulate the nuclear warheads using supercomputers. As the stockpile ages, the simulations have become more complex, and the maintenance of the stockpile requires more computing power. Over the years, due to Moore's Law, the ASC program has created several different supercomputers with increasing power, in order to compute the simulations and mathematics.
The majority of ASC's research is done on super-computers in three different laboratories. The calculations are verified by human calculations.
The ASC program has three laboratories:
The ASC program currently houses two super computers on the TOP500 list for computing power. The Sequoia, which is currently ranked third in the world for computing power, is currently being used for simulation and testing in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.Cielo, which is also located in Los Alamos National Laboratory, is 57th on the TOP500 list for most powerful computer. Cielo is researching classified information. Although these computers may be in separate laboratories, remote computing has been established between the three main laboratories.
Within the ASC program, there are six subdivisions, each having their own role in the extension of the life of the stockpile.
The Facility Operations and User Support subdivision is responsible for the physical computers and facilities and the computing network within ASC. They are responsible for making sure the tri-lab network, computing storage space, power usage, and the costumer computing resources are all in line.
The Computational and User Support subdivision is responsible for maintaining and creating the supercomputer software according to NNSA's standards. They also deal with the data, networking and software tools.
The ASCI Path Forward project substantially funded the initial development of the Lustre parallel file system from 2001 to 2004.
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