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This is really not true, the stockpile stewardship thing is a separate part of DoE. Frontier does no nuclear weapons-related simulations at all and it does zero

by gh02t 4y ago

This is really not true, the stockpile stewardship thing is a separate part of DoE. Frontier does no nuclear weapons-related simulations at all and it does zero classified work (the space it's in/network it's on can't support it). Frontier is things like materials research, nuclear reactor simulations (for power generation), machine learning etc... whatever people propose to do on it. Compute time on Frontier is zero cost and open to almost any US researcher, though it's extremely competitive so actually getting any time isn't easy. You basically have to make a really compelling case that your proposal is a) exceptionally valuable and b) not feasible to be done on any more modest system. DoE is building (and has built) similar leadership-class computers for stockpile stewardship but it's a completely separate program that actually usually lags behind the open science machines they build. El Capitan is the system they're building at Livermore for stockpile work.

watersb 4y ago
Another big application is drug discovery and development, computational chemistry. I don't believe that Frontier was used directly for COVID vaccine research, but it very well could have done.
- gh02t 4y ago
  It's on the schedule for Frontier, which is still coming online. Summit (its predecessor) was, however.
areoform 4y ago
I am unsure how tangled the relationships are as what you're saying can be strictly true, but I doubt that this has nothing to do with weapons related simulation. Here's the most recent report to congress, published in March 2022 about the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan, Near-Term and Out-Year Mission Goals: ◼ Advance the innovative experimental platforms, diagnostic equipment, and computational capabilities necessary to ensure stockpile safety, security, reliability, and effectiveness: – Achieve exascale computing by delivering an exascale-capable machine and modernizing the nuclear weapons code base – Develop an operational enhanced capability (advanced radiography and reactivity measurements) for subcritical experiments – Quantify the effects of plutonium aging on weapon performance over time – Assure an enduring, trusted supply of strategic radiation-hardened microsystems and, The weapons comprising the U.S. nuclear stockpile are assessed to be safe, reliable, effective, and secure. DOE/NNSA’s scientific infrastructure is currently adequate to support stockpile actions. The DOE/NNSA plans to address near-term gaps in required scientific capabilities by deploying the DOE/NNSA’s first exascale computing platform in fiscal year (FY)2023 and by improving capabilities to conduct subcritical experiments through the Enhanced Capabilities for Subcritical Experiments project by FY 2026. It seems they're building three of these computers, Frontier is one of them, from the budget requests and a press release, The budget request for Advanced Simulation and Computing increased to support pursuing new validated integrated design codes and advanced high-performance computing capabilities, including the El Capitan exascale system procurement. The press release, Featuring advanced capabilities for modeling, simulation and artificial intelligence (AI), based on Cray’s new Shasta architecture, El Capitan is projected to run national nuclear security applications at more than 50 times the speed of LLNL’s Sequoia system. Depending on the application, El Capitan will run roughly 10 times faster on average than LLNL’s Sierra system, currently the world’s second most powerful supercomputer at 125 petaflops of peak performance. Projected to be at least four times more energy efficient than Sierra, El Capitan is expected to go into production by late 2023, servicing the needs of NNSA’s Tri-Laboratory community: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories El Capitan will be DOE’s third exascale-class supercomputer, following Argonne National Laboratory’s "Aurora" and Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s "Frontier" system. All three DOE exascale supercomputers will be built by Cray utilizing their Shasta architecture, Slingshot interconnect and new software platform. Link to the congressional report, https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/FY%202022%20SSMP%20March%202022.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/FY%202022... Link to the press release, https://www.llnl.gov/news/doennsa-lab-announce-partnership-cray-develop-nnsas-first-exascale-supercomputer https://www.llnl.gov/news/doennsa-lab-announce-partnership-c... - It does seem to me that it's an accurate assessment to say that this project exists because of the nuclear weapons research mandate.
- gh02t 4y ago
  > It does seem to me that it's an accurate assessment to say that this project exists because of the nuclear weapons research mandate. It's not an accurate assessment, in that it's an over-simplification. DoE is a big entity. DoE does weapons research. DoE also does general science research. They are separate responsibilities and have to be, because weapons research is classified and is legally required to be kept separate. The funding pathway that pays for the computing needs of each mission likewise is legally separate and jealously guarded from each other by program managers. The computers are housed, as noted by your quoted press release, in separate laboratories. Those laboratories are run independently of each other, and have distinct responsibilities. Frontier cannot run weapons-related simulations because it's not approved for classified work, which has some really strenuous requirements that the government takes extremely seriously. It is true to say DoE exists because of nuclear weapons research, that's a big part of their role and history. The distinction is that it's not their only role, and their general science mission is not purely in service of the weapons program legally or practically. It's true to say that the programs coexist together and operate in parallel, but they are separate with their own goals. You're citing the goals of the NNSA computing program, which absolutely are weapons-related, but the Office of Science that funds and operates Frontier, Aurora etc is a separate entity with independent funding and governance within DoE. The best analogy I can think of is that it's like saying PowerPoint wouldn't exist without Word. Taken very literally there is an element of truth, but it's a gross oversimplification of the actual situation and history. Note that DoE publicly releases almost all of its unclassified publications on osti.gov for free, including publications using Frontier and the other open supercomputers. OLCF also specifically aggregates publications from researchers using their machines if you wanna get an idea of what is done with them https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/publications/ https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/publications/ . You should be able to get the full texts on OSTI.
  - areoform 4y ago
    I appreciate your points, and objectively you are right. I think the place where we are diverging are in how we slice the history/pie. At this point, at least for me, our discussion is becoming extremely interesting and I'm thinking/learning more in the process. Would you mind humoring me? — For me, this is the fruit of a tree and a part of a long chain of causality. We start with von Neumann fiddling with machines at Los Alamos and wind up at the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative from the 90s https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK44974/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK44974/ and then fast forward to the excascale program in the early-to-mid 2010s. I am not a professional, but this is an area of interest for me. And I've been tracking it for some time, and in the earlier communications, the ORNL etc seemed to be fairly clear on who was cutting the checks, from 2013, The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have awarded $25.4 million in research and development contracts to five leading companies in high-performance computing (HPC) to accelerate the development of next-generation supercomputers. Under DOE’s new DesignForward initiative, AMD, Cray, IBM, Intel Federal and NVIDIA will work to advance extreme-scale, on the path to exascale, computing technology that is vital to national security, scientific research, energy security and the nation's economic competitiveness. “Exascale computing is key to NNSA’s capability of ensuring the safety and security of our nuclear stockpile without returning to underground testing,” said Robert Meisner, director of the NNSA Office of Advanced Simulation and Computing program. “The resulting simulation capabilities will also serve as valuable tools to address nonproliferation and counterterrorism issues, as well as informing other national security decisions.” From: https://www.nersc.gov/news-publications/nersc-news/nersc-center-news/2013/department-of-energy-awards-25-4-million-in-contracts-for-extreme-scale-supercomputer-interconnect-design/ https://www.nersc.gov/news-publications/nersc-news/nersc-cen... The program was funded fully in 2016 after many years of partial funding, ORNL's report, The mission of the Exascale Computing Project (ECP) is the accelerated delivery of a capable exascale computing ecosystem to provide breakthrough solutions addressing our most critical challenges in scientific discovery, energy assurance, economic competitiveness, and national security. As a multi-lab effort, sponsored by the DOE’s Office of Science and National Nuclear Security Administration, the ECP is chartered with the following tasks: Developing exascale-ready applications and solutions that address currently intractable problems of strategic importance and national interest. Creating and deploying an expanded and vertically integrated software stack on DOE HPC pre-exascale and exascale systems. Delivering US HPC vendor technology advances and deploying ECP products to DOE HPC pre-exascale and exascale systems. Delivering exascale simulation and data science innovations and solutions to national problems that enhance US economic competitiveness, change our quality of life, and strengthen our national security. From: https://www.ornl.gov/content/about-ecp https://www.ornl.gov/content/about-ecp I think the other applications are far more important than the weapons research, fwiw. Just as ARPA-net and the internet it spawned ended up being far more valuable than their initial strategic use case. Even if the important stuff is a side project, just like fusion as an eventual source of energy seems to be for NIF, it's great that it's happening at all. Hope this makes sense! Thanks!

by gh02t 4y ago

watersb 4y ago

Another big application is drug discovery and development, computational chemistry. I don't believe that Frontier was used directly for COVID vaccine research, but it very well could have done.

gh02t 4y ago
It's on the schedule for Frontier, which is still coming online. Summit (its predecessor) was, however.

areoform 4y ago

I am unsure how tangled the relationships are as what you're saying can be strictly true, but I doubt that this has nothing to do with weapons related simulation. Here's the most recent report to congress, published in March 2022 about the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan, Near-Term and Out-Year Mission Goals: ◼ Advance the innovative experimental platforms, diagnostic equipment, and computational capabilities necessary to ensure stockpile safety, security, reliability, and effectiveness: – Achieve exascale computing by delivering an exascale-capable machine and modernizing the nuclear weapons code base – Develop an operational enhanced capability (advanced radiography and reactivity measurements) for subcritical experiments – Quantify the effects of plutonium aging on weapon performance over time – Assure an enduring, trusted supply of strategic radiation-hardened microsystems and, The weapons comprising the U.S. nuclear stockpile are assessed to be safe, reliable, effective, and secure. DOE/NNSA’s scientific infrastructure is currently adequate to support stockpile actions. The DOE/NNSA plans to address near-term gaps in required scientific capabilities by deploying the DOE/NNSA’s first exascale computing platform in fiscal year (FY)2023 and by improving capabilities to conduct subcritical experiments through the Enhanced Capabilities for Subcritical Experiments project by FY 2026. It seems they're building three of these computers, Frontier is one of them, from the budget requests and a press release, The budget request for Advanced Simulation and Computing increased to support pursuing new validated integrated design codes and advanced high-performance computing capabilities, including the El Capitan exascale system procurement. The press release, Featuring advanced capabilities for modeling, simulation and artificial intelligence (AI), based on Cray’s new Shasta architecture, El Capitan is projected to run national nuclear security applications at more than 50 times the speed of LLNL’s Sequoia system. Depending on the application, El Capitan will run roughly 10 times faster on average than LLNL’s Sierra system, currently the world’s second most powerful supercomputer at 125 petaflops of peak performance. Projected to be at least four times more energy efficient than Sierra, El Capitan is expected to go into production by late 2023, servicing the needs of NNSA’s Tri-Laboratory community: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories El Capitan will be DOE’s third exascale-class supercomputer, following Argonne National Laboratory’s "Aurora" and Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s "Frontier" system. All three DOE exascale supercomputers will be built by Cray utilizing their Shasta architecture, Slingshot interconnect and new software platform. Link to the congressional report, https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/FY%202022%20SSMP%20March%202022.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-03/FY%202022... Link to the press release, https://www.llnl.gov/news/doennsa-lab-announce-partnership-cray-develop-nnsas-first-exascale-supercomputer https://www.llnl.gov/news/doennsa-lab-announce-partnership-c... - It does seem to me that it's an accurate assessment to say that this project exists because of the nuclear weapons research mandate.

gh02t 4y ago
> It does seem to me that it's an accurate assessment to say that this project exists because of the nuclear weapons research mandate. It's not an accurate assessment, in that it's an over-simplification. DoE is a big entity. DoE does weapons research. DoE also does general science research. They are separate responsibilities and have to be, because weapons research is classified and is legally required to be kept separate. The funding pathway that pays for the computing needs of each mission likewise is legally separate and jealously guarded from each other by program managers. The computers are housed, as noted by your quoted press release, in separate laboratories. Those laboratories are run independently of each other, and have distinct responsibilities. Frontier cannot run weapons-related simulations because it's not approved for classified work, which has some really strenuous requirements that the government takes extremely seriously. It is true to say DoE exists because of nuclear weapons research, that's a big part of their role and history. The distinction is that it's not their only role, and their general science mission is not purely in service of the weapons program legally or practically. It's true to say that the programs coexist together and operate in parallel, but they are separate with their own goals. You're citing the goals of the NNSA computing program, which absolutely are weapons-related, but the Office of Science that funds and operates Frontier, Aurora etc is a separate entity with independent funding and governance within DoE. The best analogy I can think of is that it's like saying PowerPoint wouldn't exist without Word. Taken very literally there is an element of truth, but it's a gross oversimplification of the actual situation and history. Note that DoE publicly releases almost all of its unclassified publications on osti.gov for free, including publications using Frontier and the other open supercomputers. OLCF also specifically aggregates publications from researchers using their machines if you wanna get an idea of what is done with them https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/publications/ https://www.olcf.ornl.gov/publications/ . You should be able to get the full texts on OSTI.
- areoform 4y ago
  I appreciate your points, and objectively you are right. I think the place where we are diverging are in how we slice the history/pie. At this point, at least for me, our discussion is becoming extremely interesting and I'm thinking/learning more in the process. Would you mind humoring me? — For me, this is the fruit of a tree and a part of a long chain of causality. We start with von Neumann fiddling with machines at Los Alamos and wind up at the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative from the 90s https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK44974/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK44974/ and then fast forward to the excascale program in the early-to-mid 2010s. I am not a professional, but this is an area of interest for me. And I've been tracking it for some time, and in the earlier communications, the ORNL etc seemed to be fairly clear on who was cutting the checks, from 2013, The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have awarded $25.4 million in research and development contracts to five leading companies in high-performance computing (HPC) to accelerate the development of next-generation supercomputers. Under DOE’s new DesignForward initiative, AMD, Cray, IBM, Intel Federal and NVIDIA will work to advance extreme-scale, on the path to exascale, computing technology that is vital to national security, scientific research, energy security and the nation's economic competitiveness. “Exascale computing is key to NNSA’s capability of ensuring the safety and security of our nuclear stockpile without returning to underground testing,” said Robert Meisner, director of the NNSA Office of Advanced Simulation and Computing program. “The resulting simulation capabilities will also serve as valuable tools to address nonproliferation and counterterrorism issues, as well as informing other national security decisions.” From: https://www.nersc.gov/news-publications/nersc-news/nersc-center-news/2013/department-of-energy-awards-25-4-million-in-contracts-for-extreme-scale-supercomputer-interconnect-design/ https://www.nersc.gov/news-publications/nersc-news/nersc-cen... The program was funded fully in 2016 after many years of partial funding, ORNL's report, The mission of the Exascale Computing Project (ECP) is the accelerated delivery of a capable exascale computing ecosystem to provide breakthrough solutions addressing our most critical challenges in scientific discovery, energy assurance, economic competitiveness, and national security. As a multi-lab effort, sponsored by the DOE’s Office of Science and National Nuclear Security Administration, the ECP is chartered with the following tasks: Developing exascale-ready applications and solutions that address currently intractable problems of strategic importance and national interest. Creating and deploying an expanded and vertically integrated software stack on DOE HPC pre-exascale and exascale systems. Delivering US HPC vendor technology advances and deploying ECP products to DOE HPC pre-exascale and exascale systems. Delivering exascale simulation and data science innovations and solutions to national problems that enhance US economic competitiveness, change our quality of life, and strengthen our national security. From: https://www.ornl.gov/content/about-ecp https://www.ornl.gov/content/about-ecp I think the other applications are far more important than the weapons research, fwiw. Just as ARPA-net and the internet it spawned ended up being far more valuable than their initial strategic use case. Even if the important stuff is a side project, just like fusion as an eventual source of energy seems to be for NIF, it's great that it's happening at all. Hope this makes sense! Thanks!