Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

If I Had a Hammer: Purdue's Anvil Supercomputer Will See Use All Over the Land

29/11/2021

Carol Song is opening a door for researchers to advance science on Anvil, Purdue University's new AI-ready supercomputer, an opportunity she couldn't have imagined as a teenager in China.

I grew up in a tumultuous time when, unless you had unusual circumstances, the only option for high school grads was to work alongside farmers or factory workers, then suddenly I was told I could go to college, said Song, now the project director of Anvil.

And not just any college. Her scores on a national entrance exam opened the door to Tsinghua University, home to China's most prestigious engineering school.

Along the way, someone told her computers would be big, so she signed up for computer science before she had ever seen a computer. She learned soon enough.

We were building hardware from the ground up, designing microinstructions and logic circuits, so I got to understand computers from the inside out, she said.

Easing Access to Supercomputers Skip forward a few years to grad school at the University of Illinois when another big door opened.

While working in distributed systems, she was hired as one of the first programmers at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, one of the first sites in a U.S. program funding supercomputers that researchers shared.

To make the systems more accessible, she helped develop alternatives to the crude editing tools of the day that displayed one line of a program at a time. And she helped pioneering researchers like Michael Norman create visualizations of their work.

GPUs Add AI to HPC In 2005, she joined Purdue, where she has helped manage nearly three dozen research projects representing more than $60 million in grants as a senior research scientist in the university's supercomputing center.

All that helped when we started defining Anvil. I see researchers' pain points when they are getting on a new system, said Song.

Anvil links 1,000 Dell EMC PowerEdge C6525 server nodes with 2,000 of the latest AMD x86 CPUs and 64 NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPUs on a NVIDIA Quantum InfiniBand network to handle traditional HPC and new AI workloads.

The system, built by Dell Technologies, will deliver 5.3 petaflops and half a million GPU cycles per year to tens of thousands of researchers across the U.S. working on the National Science Foundation's XSEDE network.

Anvil Forges Desktop, Cloud Links To harness that power, Anvil supports interactive user interfaces as well as the batch jobs that are traditional in high performance computing.

Researchers can use their favorite tools like Jupyter notebooks and remote desktop interfaces so the cluster can look just like in their daily work environment, she said.

Anvil will also support links to Microsoft Azure, so researchers can access its large datasets and commercial cloud-computing muscle. It's an innovative part of this system that will let researchers experiment with creating workflows that span research and commercial environments, Song said.

Fighting COVID, Exploring AI More than 30 research teams have already signed up to be early users of Anvil.

One team will apply deep learning to medical images to improve diagnosis of respiratory diseases including COVID-19. Another will build causal and logical check points into neural networks to explore why deep learning delivers excellent results.

We'll support a lot of GPU-specific tools like NGC containers for accelerated applications, and as with every new system, users can ask for additional toolkits and libraries they want, she said.

The Anvil team aims to invite industry collaborations to test new ideas using up to 10 percent of the system's capacity. It's a discretionary use we want to apply strategically to enable projects that wouldn't happen without such resources, she said.

Opening Doors for Science and Inclusion Early users are working on Anvil today and the system will be available for all users in about a month.

Anvil's opening day has a special significance for Song, one of the few women to act as a lead manager for a national supercomputer site.

Carol Song and Purdue's Anvil supercomputer I've been fortunate to be in environments where I've always been encouraged to do my best and given opportunities, she said.

Around the industry and the research computing community there still aren't a lot of women in leadership roles, so it's an ongoing effort and there's a lot of room to do better, but I'm also very enthusiastic about mentoring women to help them get into this field, she added.

Purdue's research computing group shares Song's enthusiasm about getting women into supercomputing. It's home to one of the first chapters of the international Women in High-Performance Computing organization.

Purdue's Women in HPC chapter sent an all-female team to a student cluster competition at SC18. It also hosts outside speakers, provides travel support to attend conferences and connects students and early career professionals to experienced mentors like Song.

Pictured at top: Carol Song, Anvil's principal investigator (PI) and project director along with Anvil co-PIs (from left) Rajesh Kalyanam, Xiao Zhu and Preston Smith.
LINK: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2021/11/29/purdue-anvil-supercomputer/...
See more stories from nvidia

North America Stories

28/05/2026

Matt Gangl and Pete Macheska on FOX MLB's Huge Night and Unforgettable Postseason Run

FOX Sports' MLB coverage dominated the night at the 47th Annual Sports Emmy ...

28/05/2026

FOX's Mike Davies and Team on Win as Outstanding Technical Team for 2025 World Series

One of the most memorable postseasons in baseball history would have had no memo...

28/05/2026

NBC Sports' Rob Hyland Reflects on an Unforgettable Sunday Night Football Season

NBC's Sunday Night Football is among the most-decorated and most-watched pro...

28/05/2026

Prime Video's John Ward and Mike Francis on Groundbreaking NBA on Prime Video Studio

The 2026 Sports Emmys marked a watershed moment for Prime Video Sports. After bu...

28/05/2026

18th-Annual SVG College Sports Media Awards Crown Years Best Work in Atlanta

Hosted by ESPN Senior Writer Ryan McGee, the ceremony honored winners from athletic departments, conference offices, professional networks, production companies...

28/05/2026

Networks Unveil 2026 College Football Broadcast Schedules

Major rights-holders rolled out their 2026 college football slates today, offering a first look at marquee windows, kickoff partners, and conference distributio...

28/05/2026

NHL's Steve Mayer on the Behind-the-Scenes Access of 4 Nations Face-Off: Unveiled

The 4 Nations Face-Off, an international competition that launched in February 2...

28/05/2026

ESPN's Manny de la Fe on the Gratifying Conclusion to Inaugural Season in Spanish

Soccer is a truly global sport, and, to match the U.S. viewing audience's in...

28/05/2026

CBS Sports' Graphics Team on the Vision of The NFL Today's Virtual Time Machine

The NFL Today, CBS Sports' top-of-the-line NFL studio show, has a storied hi...

28/05/2026

Prime Video's Mike Muriano on the Immediate Success of Fan Optionality Feature

Prime Video is no stranger to innovation, and, within the realm of live streamin...

28/05/2026

FOX Sports' Jamie McCombs on Showcasing MLB Atmosphere With Immersive Audio

The crack of the bat, the pop of the glove, and the cheer of the crowd: those are three prime examples of the glorious sounds fans hear on televised baseball ga...

28/05/2026

CBS Sports' Harold Bryant on Capturing the Essence of March Madness in the Studio

Every year, March Madness captivates the entire sports world. Nonstop action, un...

28/05/2026

NBC Sports' Chad Hudson on Developing Graphics for the Return of NBA on NBC

NBA on NBC was an integral part to live sports production in the 1990s, and, when the league made these media rights available, NBC Sports saw an opportunity to...

28/05/2026

MLB's Ryan Zander on the Tech Innovation Behind the League's UmpCam AR System

UmpCam is a technological wrinkle that has given fans unprecedented views of wha...

28/05/2026

T-Mobile Brings America's Best Network to the USGA

T-Mobile and the United States Golf Association (USGA) announced a multi-year partnership, making T-Mobile the Official 5G Network Partner of the U.S. Women'...

28/05/2026

Time and Water Is a Moving Portrait of Family History and a Warming Iceland

By Gina McIntyre (L-R) Sara Dosa and Andri Sn r Magnason attend the Time and Water premiere during the 2026 Sundance Film Festival at Library Center Theatre ...

28/05/2026

Amazon MGM Studios, AWS Launch GenAI Creators' Fund

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/05/2026

AudioShake Launches Copyright Compliance System

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/05/2026

Big Blue Marble Advances 5G Broadcast

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/05/2026

Will Must-Carry Make It to NextGen TV?

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/05/2026

Swiss Broadcaster Canal Alpha Streamlines Playout to Deli...

Harmonic (NASDAQ: HLIT) today announced that Swiss broadcaster Canal Alpha has deployed Harmonics award-winning, software-based XOS Advanced Media Processor to ...

28/05/2026

Calrec Scales ImPulseV to Expand Choice in Virtualized Audio Workflows

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/05/2026

Berliner Ensemble Upgrades Backstage Infrastructure With...

Riedel Communications today announced that Berliner Ensemble, one of Berlin's five major theater companies, has expanded its backstage communications and te...

28/05/2026

Digital Alert Systems Ed Czarnecki to Speak on Advanced E...

Company's VP Government and International to Address How Broadcasters Can Operationalize Advanced Emergency Information for NextGen TV Digital Alert Syst...

28/05/2026

Radio BGM Upgrades and Futureproofs with DHD SX2 Audio Mi...

Radio BGM (https://radiobgm.org.uk/), Llanellis multiple-award-winning community and hospital radio station, has invested in a DHD SX2 audio mixing console and ...

28/05/2026

Calrec Scales ImPulseV to Empower Broadcasters with Great...

Further strengthening its virtualisation strategy to fully support broadcasters as they enter a new broadcast age, Calrec announces an expansion to its ImPulseV...

28/05/2026

NAB, MPA and NCTA Defend Current TV Ratings System

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/05/2026

Amazon MGM Studios, AWS Launch the GenAI Creators' Fund

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/05/2026

AudioShake Launches New Copyright Compliance System

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/05/2026

ITV Studios Deploys Cuez Live Production Platform

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

28/05/2026

ACT Entertainment Introduces Green Hippo Estuary Series a...

Green Hippo, an ACT Entertainment brand, will pull back the curtain on the Estuary Series, a next-generation media control platform engineered for the scale, sp...

28/05/2026

ZEISS Introduces Panoptes 65 Cinema Lenses at Cine Gear E...

First Hands-On Opportunity at Universal Studios Lot, June 5-6 Oberkochen, Germany, May 27, 2026 ZEISS is launching their new Panoptes 65 primes at Cine Gear ...

28/05/2026

Wooden Camera Releases New Accessories for Blackmagic URS...

Irvine, CA May 20, 2026 Wooden Camera today announced the release of new accessories for the Blackmagic URSA Cine Immersive. The new lineup includes a redes...

28/05/2026

Cool Concentric Text for Cavalry

Cool Concentric Text for Cavalry Simon Ubsdell May 27, 2026 0 Comments In this tutorial I'll show you how to make this popular text effect that is...

28/05/2026

The Fourth and Final Season of 'Death Inc.' Releases on August 7

Back to All News The Fourth and Final Season of Death Inc. Releases on August 7 Entertainment 28 May 2026 GlobalSpain Link copied to clipboard Download th...

28/05/2026

The Name's Gaming Cloud Gaming: 007 First Light' Launches on GeForce NOW

License to stream, shaken and stirred. GeForce NOW is dialing up the espionage with the launch of 007 First Light, letting members slip into James Bond's r...

28/05/2026

NVIDIA Research Advances Robotics From Simulation to the Real World

Robotics is entering a new phase: moving from controlled demos and scripted automation toward generalizable, reliable embodied autonomy in the real world. At ...

28/05/2026

May 21, 2026

Scripps Research's Skaggs Graduate School awards doctoral degrees to 34th graduating class May 21, 2026 Scripps Research's Skaggs Graduate School of ...

28/05/2026

May 27, 2026

Scripps Research chemist Jin-Quan Yu is named a Fellow of the Royal Society Yu is honored by the U.K.'s national academy of sciences for his work in synthet...

27/05/2026

Telestream Appoints Benjamin Desbois as CEO, Effective July 1

Telestream has announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Benjamin Desbois as Chief Executive Officer, effective July 1, 2026. Desbois, currently Teles...

27/05/2026

FOX MLB Leads Live-Event Categories; ESPN Is Tops Overall at 47th Annual Sports Emmy Awards

ESPN garnered 10 awards; NBC's Sunday Night Football received the Outstandin...

27/05/2026

Matrox Video Marks 50th Anniversary, Announces New Product Launch for June

Matrox Video is celebrating its 50th anniversary, marking five decades of operations from its headquarters in Montreal, Canada. Founded in 1976, the company has...

27/05/2026

MLB Announces Fan Engagement Initiatives for Americas 250th Anniversary

Major League Baseball has announced a series of initiatives tied to America's Semiquincentennial, including a national marketing campaign, Fourth of July br...

27/05/2026

Advanced Systems Group Hires Brian Gross as Account Manager for Audio Team

Advanced Systems Group (ASG) has announced that Brian Gross has joined the company as an Account Manager on its Audio team, based in the Burbank office. He will...

27/05/2026

Nielsen Research: Hispanic Fans, Asian Markets Drive Global Soccer Audience Ahead of World Cup 2026

Nielsen has released new research on soccer fandom ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2...

27/05/2026

ESL FACEIT Group Debuts First Ever Esports Vertical Stream Co-Developed With TikTok

ESL FACEIT Group (EFG) has unveiled a new partnership with TikTok to bring broad...

27/05/2026

Two Weeks Away: FIFA Outlines Production Plans for Highly Anticipated North American-Based World Cup

FIFA's Oscar Sanchez gives a deeper look to how this tournament will be cove...

27/05/2026

SVG Students To Watch: Maggie Lynn, Virginia Tech

The soon-to-be senior from Charlottesville is building her skills in replay, TD, and even creative content for HokieVision and its ACC Network productions In t...

27/05/2026

A Global Festival of Football: FOX Sports Illustrates Strategy to Bring Every FIFA Mens World Cup Match to the U.S. Audience

FOX Sports' Mike Davies breaks down the vision for this summer's showcas...