Lenovo has been working alongside Cardiff University, University of Birmingham, and Imperial College London to deliver supercomputing assets that are powering cutting-edge research. To learn more, Student Circuit spoke with Ian Jeffs, General Country Manager for UK&I at Lenovo.
Cardiff University unlocking the origins of the universe
Recently at BETT, Lenovo announced its collaboration with the University of Cardiff, in partnership with Logicalis. This collaboration aims to help boost the university’s HPC cluster performance by 100% and power groundbreaking research into the origins of the universe and star formation.
“The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Scientific Collaboration at Cardiff University is a prime example of how supercomputing can broaden humanity’s understanding of the universe,” says Jeffs.
“With 75 Lenovo ThinkSystem SR645 servers, the LIGO project doubles the compute performance available to researchers and exceeds initial performance benchmarks by ~46%. We are proud to be involved in this globally important research, enabling scientists to share their discoveries faster.
“Another research group at Cardiff University uses 15 Lenovo ThinkSystem SR630 servers with two Lenovo ThinkSystem SR650 servers for storage, as part of its star formation study. With the system funded by the Royal Society, the research group focuses on the creation of stars in spiral galaxies like our own Milky Way, requiring computationally demanding simulations of full galaxies.”
Sustainable HPC and AI at the Imperial College London
In addition to working with Cardiff University, Lenovo also supports Imperial College London, along with Intel, to deliver more sustainable HPC through its ICICLE (Imperial College Intel Corporation Lenovo) collaboration, this collaboration designs to nurture the next generation of HPC and AI researchers, promote diversity and advance life-changing discoveries.
“With sustainability in mind, the university’s Research Computing Service (RCS) is now equipped with Lenovo Neptune™ Water Cooling Technology to ensure server components and high bandwidth memory (HBM) run efficiently with cooling capabilities otherwise not achievable using traditional methods, as well as delivering workshops on deep learning, water cooling and hybrid cloud. The collaboration runs RCS supercomputing with reduced power and carbon emissions,” explains Jeffs.
Leveraging Lenovo at the University of Birmingham
As part of its strategy, the University of Birmingham is striving for net-zero carbon emissions for both on and off campus by 2045. On top of its PC partnership with Lenovo in supplying desktops, laptops, laptops, tablets, workstations, and more, the university has further leveraged Lenovo’s CO2 Offset Services to make its IT more sustainable and help it achieve its sustainability goals.
Jeffs expands: “Our CO2 Offset Services allow the university to offset the carbon cost of each of its Lenovo devices, calculated over its average lifecycle. Offsetting emissions is now embedded in the hardware configuration process, without needing extra administration or paperwork. The university can see exactly where the contribution goes and what impact it has, as each device’s serial number is tied to the environmental project that its purchase supports. Within just six months of enrolling in the scheme, the University of Birmingham has already offset 1,313 metric tonnes of carbon.”
