Milwaukee Institute: Institute to upgrade its high-performance computing infrastructure

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Milwaukee Institute to Upgrade its High-Performance Computing Infrastructure

Milwaukee – September 25, 2013 – The Milwaukee Institute, Inc. (MI) announced today at the PDS Technical Conference in Milwaukee that it is investing $500,000 to double the capacity of its high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure in Wisconsin. The expansion will enable users who require modeling, visualization and simulations as part of their research or product development to run more complex models in less time.

The Milwaukee Institute is Wisconsin’s only provider of publically accessible, HPC systems and storage infrastructure. Additionally, MI provides local technical support services available for collaborative engineering, research and development programs. The expansion is being funded with donations and program services revenues.

Providing commercial, educational, government and non-profit organizations with access to the HPC resources (referred to as the Milwaukee Metropolitan Grid, or “MGrid”) eliminates several stages of prototyping, shortens the development process, lowers costs and improves results. It also offers a virtual technical environment for unaffiliated companies to work together, share ideas, best practices and practical knowledge. Companies can use the MGrid on an as-needed basis without acquiring additional equipment, headcount, operating expenses or recurring costs.

The upgraded MGrid will be completed in October. The new infrastructure will have 47 computational nodes, with 512 computational cores and 160 TB of storage all connected via a high-speed Infiniband network. Companies gain access by purchasing HPC core hours, which includes consultation on how to best run complex modeling jobs. For qualified Wisconsin start-ups, MI offers modeling and visualization resources at no cost.

According to Jay Bayne, executive director, the upgrade underscores the Milwaukee Institute’s commitment to encourage, enable and support technology-based innovation, business formation and job growth in Wisconsin.

“No longer is the next-era of technically advanced computing limited to the confines of big government labs and academic centers. Today, it is available on a cost-effective basis to a wide range of Wisconsin organizations seeking a competitive edge,” said Bayne.

Wisconsin companies in health care, manufacturing, financial services, transportation, defense, and media and design industries currently use the MGrid. With the upgrade’s increased operational efficiencies, the MGrid can support twice as many customers without wait times. Current clients are anticipating the ability to conduct even more innovative academic and industrial research.

Allen W. Cowley Jr. PhD., Chairman of the Department of Physiology at the Medical College of Wisconsin stated, “With the resources at the Milwaukee Institute, large modeling and visualization projects to support our research now only take hours, instead of days, to complete. My teams are now more productive, and this makes a difference in being nationally competitive, which is imperative to the future success of our research.”

Sujeet Chand, Chief Technology Officer, Rockwell Automation, said, “During the past two years, Milwaukee Institute’s high-performance computing resources have helped improve some of our product design processes and quality. Given the Institute’s newest HPC upgrade, we can expand the boundaries of our computational fluid dynamics work there through enhanced modeling and simulation.”

“Direct Supply is delving deep into its information to discern insight into the supply chains we build and operate,” said Randy Kirk, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Direct Supply, Inc. “It requires expertise from disciplines not historically associated with our type of business. We value the Milwaukee Institute both for the powerful, MGrid shared high- performance computing environment, and for the growing expert community of researchers it attracts in Southeastern Wisconsin.”

About Milwaukee Institute
Founded in 2007, the Milwaukee Institute is a non-profit computational research center dedicated to promoting and providing a regional technical computing cyber-infrastructure that encourages and enables innovation within and among academic and commercial organizations. Its high-performance computing, storage and networking environment is southeast Wisconsin’s only publically accessible supercomputer resource. Members have access to modeling, simulation and visualization tools for development of new products and services, for exploration and discovery using computational science, and in analyzing very large datasets.

The Institute supports research and development projects among cooperating organizations and across multiple disciplines that seek solutions to “grand challenge” problems in such diverse fields as healthcare, energy production and distribution, advanced manufacturing, financial services, economics and natural resource management.

The Milwaukee Institute is headquartered at 411 E. Wisconsin Avenue, Suite 1280, Milwaukee, WI 53202.
For more information, visit www.mkei.org
or contact info@mkei.org; 414-727-6424.