Who is using our supercomputers?

08.11.2021

In close collaboration with the Research Allocation Committee, we have now finalised the evaluation of research applications for the 2nd resource period in 2021.

Near the end of 2021, we have more than 2000 active e-infrastructure users of the NRIS supercomputing and data storage resources. More than 700 million CPU hours are allocated to about 400 different research projects, while more than 150 projects have received nearly 12 PB in total on the national e-infrastructure resources for High-Performance Computing and scientific data.

Illustration with abstract codes.

The number of allocations requested for both HPC and storage indicates that the resource demand continues to increase. Researchers in climate modelling, life sciences, materials technology, physics, chemistry, earth science and language technology have a wide-ranging need for reliable computing power and data storage.  

Earth science and physics consume the most computer time

The HPC customers from the scientific fields of earth science and biosciences are the largest group of researchers in need of computing resources. The size of computing projects in terms of consumed CPU hours has grown year after year.

In the ongoing allocation period, the largest individual computation project is Solar Atmospheric Modelling, led by Professor Mats Carlsson, at the University of Oslo. The astrophysics project will consume no less than 132 million core hours in the ongoing allocation period. All NRIS` top 25 projects are in the millions range in CPU-hours of computing projects.  

HPC: Top 10 projects

  1. Mats Carlsson: Solar Atmospheric Modelling 
    Allocated 132 million CPU hours 
  2. Andrea Gruber: Combustion of hydrogen blends in gas turbines at reheat conditions 
    Allocated: 50 million CPU hours 
  3. Noel Keenlyside:  Bjerknes Climate Prediction Unit  
    Allocated 43.5 million CPU-hours 
  4. Trygve Helgaker: Quantum chemical studies of molecular properties and energetics of large and complex systems  
    Allocated 26.5 million CPU hours 
  5. Nathalie Reuter: Mapping peripheral protein-membrane interactions for a better description of the protein-lipid interactome 
    Allocated 25 million CPU hours 
  6. Luca Brandt: Heat and Mass Transfer in Turbulent Suspensions 
    Allocated 20 million CPU hours 
  7. Razvan Caracas: Extreme planetary interiors 
    Allocated 20 million CPU hours 
  8. Zhiliang Zhang: Mechanical properties of nano-scale polymer particles by large-scale molecular dynamics 
    Allocated 15 million CPU hours 
  9. Mats Bentsen: Computing for INES - Infrastructure for Norwegian Earth System modelling 
    Allocated 15 million CPU hours 
  10. Quoc-Anh Tran: SUBSLIDE 
    Allocated 10 million CPU hours 

Climate research on NIRD 

Climate and earth science are data-driven disciplines and by far the largest users of the national storage, followed by computational fluid dynamics and bioinformatics. 

NIRD: Top 10 projects

  1. Mats Bentsen: Storage for nationally coordinated NorESM experiments 
    Allocated 1790 terabytes  
  2. Mats Bentsen:  Storage for INES - Infrastructure for Norwegian Earth System modelling 
    Allocated 750 terabytes 
  3. Noel Keenlyside: Bjerknes Climate Prediction Unit 
    Allocated 660 terabytes 
  4. Noel Keenlyside: Synchronisation to enhance reliability of climate prediction 
    Allocated 525 terabytes 
  5. Hilde Fagerli: European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme 
    Allocated 445 terabytes 
  6. Massimo Cassiani: Atmospheric Transport - Storage 
    Allocated 420 terabytes 
  7. Mats Bentsen: Norwegian Earth System Grid data services 
    Allocated 390 terabytes 
  8. Noel Keenlyside: Impacts of Future Sea-Ice and Snow-Cover Changes on Climate, Green Growth and Society 
    Allocated 370 terabytes 
  9. Jon Albretsen:  IMR-Internal-Storage 
    Allocated 350 terabytes 
  10. Hans Kristian Eriksen: COMAP: Mapping the teenage universe with carbon monoxide 
    Allocated 350 terabytes 

Did you miss the deadline? 

 Applications submitted after the application deadline for the new period are case handled after the period has started. Within a period, all applications are handled continuously. However, old projects applying after the deadline or after the period has started, receive lower queue priority (cost command non-pri quota). 

If a project exhausts its allocations before the end of the ongoing allocation period, the project manager can submit a request for an extra allocation for the remainder of the period. There are no deadlines for such requests. Requests for extra allocations are subject to available capacity on the facilities. This also applies to proposals submitted outside regular calls. 

More useful information can be found on our support pages for project leaders and users.