Advanced Computing

Modern-day technology is quite remarkable. Most daily tasks that involve some type of computation can be easily accomplished with just your personal phone or laptop. However, the most challenging and important problems on the planet require a bit more computing memory and power. This is where advanced computing comes in.

Advanced computing is when we use powerful machines to compute or store data too large for normal desktops and laptops. Such specialized hardware comprise a cluster of compute and storage nodes, each consisting of many CPUs and/or GPUs all interconnected in a way that caters to large-scaled data processing and storage.

You might have already heard the terms supercomputing or cloud computing before. Both of these fall under the concept of advanced computing.

In this section, we’ll learn what advanced computing is about and how it’s used for science in a short video series produced at the University of Victoria.

Advanced Research Computing (ARC)

The Digital Research Alliance of Canada provides supercomputing and cloud computing resources to thousands of researchers across Canada. In this first video, Sarah Huber and Jeff Albert cover the basics of high-performance computing (HPC) as well as cloud computing and gives us a tour of the Arbutus cloud facility at the University of Victoria.

 

 

Computational Neuroscience

Dr. Fernando González Ibáñez, a post-doctoral fellow in the School of Medical Sciences, describes how advanced research computing helps to reconstruct images in brain research.

 

Particle Physics

Professor Heather Russell from the Department of Physics and Astronomy tells how instrumental advanced computing resources are for storing massive datasets from particle collision experiments at CERN.

 

Computational Chemistry

The Computational Chemistry research group led by Professor Irina Paci rely heavily on supercomputing for simulating materials and understanding their properties.

 

Quantum Computing

Professor Thomas Baker talks about the power of quantum computing for materials simulation and how supercomputers assist in the design and development of quantum computers.

 

Summary

Advanced Research Computing is an essential aspect of scientific research whenever massive datasets need to be stored and analyzed. As quantum computers mature and become an even more powerful computing technology, high-performance computers will continue to play a major role in science research. Quantum-centric supercomputing refers to the combination of quantum computing and high-performance computing for efficient problem solving of real-world challenges.