Applying the most powerful supercomputers in the world to investigate society's Grand Challenges
Understanding the theory, the model and the algorithm is not enough – solving today’s most challenging problems also requires adapting the algorithms and techniques to exploit cutting edge computing hardware.
An Overview: High Performance Computing
What is High Performance Computing?
High performance computing (HPC) is a high-impact area that combines a broad array of tools and techniques needed to take the numerical models developed throughout the Institute and modify them to run efficiently on today’s modern supercomputers. Supercomputers are used in support of almost all fields of science and typically aggregate hundreds to thousands of individual computers using a high-speed, low-latency communication fabric. Through additional programing efforts, applications can then harness the aggregate memory and floating-point performance afforded by the supercomputer to perform calculations that could not be done otherwise including (1) running simulations at a scale and resolution that are impossible on a single system due to memory constraints, (2) using domain decomposition to drastically reduce the time-to-solution of a time-sensitive prediction (e.g. weather forecasting), and (3) performing uncertainty quantification (UQ), or design optimization by exploring the response of thousands of related simulations that would otherwise be intractable on a few workstations.
A key component in HPC is the requirement of parallel programming which typically occurs at the node level (via threading or alternative shared-memory parallelism), and at the multi-node level (via MPI, or alternative distributed-memory system). Particularly challenging is the need to extract scientific application performance on systems that are becoming increasingly heterogenous with the growing adoption of GPUs or other accelerators. Furthermore, the HPC hardware landscape changes quickly compared to the typical scientific application lifespan, and computational scientists are faced with the need for maintaining performance portable codes that can be ported quickly to new architectures as they arise. In addition to understanding the basics of parallel programming, gaining HPC expertise draws on skills from a variety of domains including computer science, system architecture, algorithmic design, linear algebra, runtime systems, I/O, performance optimization, and software engineering; these are elements interspersed throughout the CSEM curriculum.
Current research areas
Supercomputing tools: One of the big roadblocks in research requiring the deployment of supercomputing resources is the difficulty of interaction with and working on such computers. In an NSF DesignSafe project, we develop new software to more easily interact with supercomputers. An example of the developed tools is the automation of large-scale parameter sweeps for storm surge models which allows the user to run hundreds of simulations where the input parameters are varied to ascertain model sensitivities and the effect of variable storm parameters.
Visualization tools: The outputs of the simulations from the many models used and developed in the Computational Hydraulics Group are generally text or binary files ranging in size from mega to terabytes. These formats are not easy to interpret and require postprocessing to produce useful and meaningful (visual) formats. In the figure above, a simulation of hurricane Delta impacting the Louisiana coast in October 2020. The two color scales denote the land topography and sea surface elevation, respectively, whereas the white arrows indicate magnitude and direction of the winds.
Working with partners
The University of Texas is fortunate to be home to the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), a leading national supercomputing facility that has been home to some of the nation’s fastest academic supercomputers over the last two decades. The Oden Institute has a long history partnering with TACC on a number of grants and continues to have active collaborations with examples like Frontera (TACC’s current flagship HPC system), and gaining early-access to evaluation HPC hardware in support of the Department of Energy’s Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program. Oden Institute students have access to small, dedicated internal HPC clusters, but also leverage the world-class facilities at TACC for class-room instruction and in support of their research activities. Oden Institute members also contribute to community initiatives promoting best practices such as OpenHPC.
Centers and Groups
To learn more about projects and people in High-Performance Computing, explore the centers and groups with research activities in this cross-cutting research area.
UT Austin-Led Team Wins 2025 Gordon Bell Prize for Breakthrough Research on Real-Time Tsunami Digital Twin
The ACM Gordon Bell Prize rewards innovation in applying high-performance computing to challenges in science, engineering, and large-scale data analytics.
The winning team created an improved predictive early warning framework by developing a digital twin to enable real-time, data-driven tsunami forecasting with dynamic adaptivity to complex source behavior.
ACM Gordon Bell Prize Honors Breakthrough in Real-Time Tsunami Modeling
Scientists have helped develop an advanced, real-time tsunami forecasting system that could dramatically improve early warning capabilities for coastal communities in earthquake zones.
Two Oden faculty, postdoctoral fellow Aleksey Generozov and astronomy professor Stella Offner, published a groundbreaking study in Nature Astronomy about the origin of binary stars.
Merging AI, Storytelling and Community for a More Resilient Texas
UT Austin’s Planet Texas 2050 AIM project blends AI, scientific modeling, and community storytelling to create real-time, user-friendly tools that help Texas communities better prepare for and respond to disasters like flooding, hurricanes, and disease outbreaks.
Advancing Open Source High Performance Libraries: Highlights from BLIS 2024
Industry and academia experts discussed ideas, updates, and developments to the innovative BLIS software framework over two days at the annual retreat.
Could Hydrogen, Ammonia Blends Become the Key to Clean Electricity?
Oden Institute affiliated faculty members Fabrizio Bisetti and Noel Clemens are combining hydrogen and ammonia, which are in many ways natural complements, as a potential source for generating carbon-free electricity.
UT operates some of the world’s fastest and largest computers. Take a look inside the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the processors that drive some of the world’s most important discoveries and the people behind the processors.
Computer Scientist Keshav Pingali Receives Lifetime Achievement Award for Programing Languages
Pingali received the Programming Languages Achievement Award by the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Programming Languages (SIGPLAN).
Clint Dawson Among Honorees of President’s Research Impact Award
Director of the Computational Hydraulics Group at the Oden Institute, Clint Dawson is one of two honorees of the 2024 UT President's Research Impact Award. Dawson was instrumental in developing a simulation code that is used worldwide in coastal ocean modeling and hurricane storm surge predictions.
Visualization of Flood, Disease and Climate Modeling through the Eclipse Path of Texas and Beyond
From COASTLINE to INLINE: a visual data story was on display in the TACC VisLab on April 8, 2024, solar eclipse day.
The 3D installation featured models and maps from the Texas coastline to the eclipse path of totality and showcased modeling research aimed at understanding how climate change and extreme weather events influence the distribution of organisms that may cause emerging diseases.
BLIS Software Architecture Embraced by NVIDIA, RISC-V Startups
BLIS, a software library developed in the Oden Institute's Science of High Performance Computing Group, has been acknowledged in NVIDIA's most recent performance library beta-release.
Mary F. Wheeler Medal Established by U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics
The Mary F. Wheeler Medal has been established by USACM in 2023, in honor of Wheeler's sustained contributions to the science and engineering community.
This is the first new named medal by USACM in more than a quarter century and their first award named after a woman.
George Biros recognized as a 2023 SIAM Fellow for development of high-performance scientific computing algorithms and their use tackling challenging problems.
The Peter O’Donnell Jr. Postdoctoral Research Fellows 2022-2023
O’Donnell Postdoctoral Fellowship provides funding for outstanding graduates to perform high-level, computational research with exceptional faculty in an interdisciplinary environment
Five new postdoctoral researchers join the Oden Institute community for the 2022-2023 academic year
A two-time Gordon Bell prize winner, George Biros is one of the most prolific users of supercomputers at UT Austin
His research has applications in healthcare, defense and additive manufacturing, and he advances the tools underpinning computational science and engineering (CSE)
Event honored 16 students that graduated in May 2022, as well as eight other students who graduated throughout the 2021-2022 academic year
"Congratulations to all our PhD and Master's graduate students. Collectively, you represent an incredible set of accomplishments spanning computing, applied mathematics, statistics, machine learning, engineering, science, geoscience, and medicine."
Five successful applicants gain the opportunity to tackle some of society's most pressing challenges
Researchers will take on a broad range of challenges - from water efficiencies, materials science at the exascale, the development of more energy-efficient algorithms, as well as advancing individualized care for breast cancer patients
Outstanding Dissertation Award Winner 2022 - Gopal Yalla
Project outlining improvements in turbulence modeling of major signficance to those studying "the most important unsolved problem of classical physics"
PhD graduate Gopal Yalla designs filters using underlying numerical operators explicitly
Barbara Wohlmuth Elected to German National Academy of Sciences
Significant honor puts Wohlmuth in the company of scientific figures like Albert Einstein, Max Planck, Charles Darwin and Marie Curie
Her election to the German National Academy of Sciences - as a computational applied mathematician – establishes the field as a principal core area for scientific knowledge
Oden Institute Director Lays Out Blueprint for Future of Digital Twins at TEDxUTAustin
“Technological marvels” we take for granted are tangible examples of the “computational revolution” that has reshaped society over the last two decades.
Digital twin technology has moved beyond just aerospace engineering, to impact many other engineering disciplines as well as many other applications across science and society.
NSF-funded project major boost for advanced materials research
Expected to improve prediction capabilities for novel materials design and expand applications in electronics, lighting, energy, and quantum technology
Moriba Jah to Serve on National Academies of Sciences Space Security Committee
Jah will serve on the Space Security Working Group.
NASEM works to mobilize expertise and knowledge across disciplines to “study complex and sometimes contentious issues, reach consensus based on the evidence, and identify the best path forward.”
