Some mathematical simulations used to predict the outcomes of real events are so complex that theyll stump even todays top supercomputers. To incubate the next generation of supercomputers for tackling real-world problems, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has selected Stanford as one of its three new Multidisciplinary Simulation Centers.
The Stanford effort, under the leadership of Gianluca Iaccarino, an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering and the Institute for Computational Mathematical Engineering, will receive $3.2 million per year for the next five years under the NNSAs Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program II (PSAAP II). The University of Utah and the University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign were selected to house the other two centers.
Engineers in Stanfords Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program will embrace exascale computing while developing complex computer models of technologies that could increase the efficiency of solar concentrators, such as this one operated by the US Department of Energy in New Mexico. (Photo courtesy of SandiaLabs)
Participants in PSAAP II will devise new computing paradigms within the context of solving a practical engineering problem. The Stanford project will work on predicting the efficiency of a relatively untested and poorly understood method of harvesting solar energy.
The project will draw on expertise from the Mechanical Engineering, Aeronautics and Astronautics, Computer Science and Math departments.
Traditional solar-thermal systems use mirrors to concentrate solar radiation on a solid surface and transfer energy to a fluid, the first step toward generating electricity. In the proposed system, fine particles suspended within the fluid would absorb sunlight and directly transfer the heat evenly throughout the fluid. This technique would allow for higher energy absorption and transfer rates, which would ultimately increase the efficiency of the overall system.
A critical aspect of assessing this technique involves predicting uncertainty within the system. For example, the alignment of the mirrors is imprecise and the suspended particles arent of uniform size. We need to rigorously assess the impacts of these sensitivities to be able to compute the efficiency of a system like this, Iaccarino said. There is currently no supercomputer in the world that can do this, and no physical model.
In order to crack this problem, Stanford and the other program participants will need to address the other part of the NNSAs directive: develop programming environments and computational approaches that target an exascale computer, a computer that is 1,000 times faster than todays fastest supercomputers, by 2018. The overall task presents several challenges.
The supercomputer paradigm has reached a physical apex, Iaccarino said. Energy consumption is too high, the computers get too hot, and its too expensive to compute with millions of commodity computers bundled together. Next generation supercomputers will have completely different architectures.
A particular design challenge facing engineers is that just one faulty processing unit will halt a simulation. An exascale computer consisting of millions of units will be prone to frequent failure, and so scientists will need to design intelligent backup systems that will allow the simulation to continue running even when one portion of the computer has crashed.
The ambiguity surrounding exascale architecture complicates matters on the software development end: Iaccarino and his colleagues will essentially have to program blind for such a system. The programing models they develop will need to have enough flexibility to work on whatever computer model emerges as viable in 2018.
Stanford is particularly well suited to handling the task, Iaccarino said.
Fifteen years ago, the Computer Science Department and the Mechanical Engineering Department joined forces to embrace massively parallel computing in solving challenging multi-physics engineering problems, he said.
That relationship, Iaccarino said, contributed to the NNSA continuing its 15-year collaboration with the university; Stanford is the only university to receive funding in every round since the programs inception.
In concert with the simulation work, the researchers will operate a physical experiment of the solar collector to test the predictions and identify other critical sensitivities. Beyond the lab, Iaccarino said that the overall effort will spur new graduate-level courses and workshops dedicated to exploring the intersection of computational science and engineering.
Stanford will also collaborate with five universities on the project: the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, the University of Colorado-Boulder, the University of Texas-Austin and the State University of New York-Stony Brook.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Some mathematical simulations used to predict the outcomes of real events are so complex that theyll stump even todays top supercomputers. To incubate the next generation of supercomputers for tackling real-world problems, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has selected Stanford as one of its three new Multidisciplinary Simulation Centers. 
