CSIRO is seeking a full petaflop of processing power.

Australia’s peak science body is replacing its BRAGG supercomputer, which has been ranked one of the fastest and most efficient systems in the world.  

BRAGG, built in 2012, was one of the first supercomputer systems to combine CPUs and GPUs for processing at a peak performance of 472.5 teraflops.

But its replacement will be capable of more than double that.

The CSIRO has issued a tender worth up to $4 million for a system based on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, with each CPU compute node running Power or Intel x86 64-bit CPUs, with a minimum of 4 cores. Each node will have at least two NVIDIA Pascal GPUs and be connected to an existing FDR Infiniband interconnect.

The scientists want the cluster to power a new generation of research, including data analysis, modelling, and simulation in a variety of science domains, such as biophysics, material science, molecular modelling, marine science, geochemical modelling, computational fluid dynamics, and more recently, artificial intelligence and data analytics using deep learning.

The successful bidder will be asked to deliver and support the system for three years within the $4 million proposed budget.

The tender process is currently open for submission at AusTender.