La Jornada: Abacus, among the five most powerful computers in the country: Isidoro Gitler

The supercomputer Abacusinaugurated eight years ago in the Laboratory of Applied Mathematics and High Performance Computing (Abacus-Cinvestav) in the state of Mexico, continues to be a reference in the country, having given a strong boost to scientific and technological research.

With a capacity of half petaflop (a unit of measurement of computational performance that represents one billion floating point operations per second), is among the five most powerful in the country – after the supercomputer Yuccafrom the University of Sonora (Unison)–. Beyond its power, Abacus It is relevant for the projects it hosted, the boost it gave to the academic community and because it opened a gap in the development of supercomputing in Mexico.

“What I like most about Abacus “We opened the possibility for researchers, technologists and students to use the great computing capacity that it offered at that time,” said Isidoro Gitler, pioneer of the project.

In 2011, the federal government launched a call, in collaboration with the state government of Mexico, to strengthen the country’s scientific-technological infrastructure. The winning project was presented by the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (Cinvestav) of the National Polytechnic Institute, prepared by specialists from its mathematics department and headed by Gitler (The Day 15/9/17).

A central feature of the project was to give researchers high processing capacity. “Of the 9 thousand CPU processing cores that we had, we were able to assign up to 7 thousand to a single project, when other institutions – even worldwide – were not easy to grant more than 2 or 3 thousand cores,” he explained.

For Gitler, this ability was decisive for many projects to achieve great relevance, both for their theoretical results and their practical applications. In its first stage, Abacus developed more than 140 research projects that generated nearly 250 scientific articles, in addition to numerous conferences and workshops.

Among the topics addressed are the numerical simulation of vascular malformations in the brain; racemization studies in molecular helix chemistry; simulation of environmental risks; mathematical applications in sand piles; coverage matrices for testing software; problems related to various energy sources; astrophysics; fluid dynamics and cryptographic algorithms.

One of the most relevant projects of the past five years was Enerxico: Supercomputing and Energy for Mexico, which involved 12 institutions – six from Mexico and six from the European Union –, with the aim of studying processes of interest both for Pemex, in oil matters, and for the development of alternative energies.

“Its objective was to influence the solution of specific problems of Petróleos Mexicanos, such as the exploitation of deposits, the understanding of their structure and the injection of gases or other substances to maximize their use,” explained Gitler, who highlighted that this project left learning at multiple levels, from the training of personnel to the development of software completely national.

He detailed that during this project artificial intelligence tools were incorporated. “Since then, it was identified that AI would play a key role, so solutions were developed that supported the technological advance made in collaboration with different actors in the energy sector.”

About the current situation of AbacusGitler considered that they have been harmed by the administrative complexity experienced at Cinvestav, which has made it difficult to use resources obtained through different projects, and has even forced them to be returned.

“We have faced various impasses in our activity due, precisely, to the difficulties in using resources. This has led us to periods in which we work at a minimum, followed by moments of high activity, and then stop again,” he explained.

Before the announcement of Coatlicue –the future Mexican supercomputer–, Gitler stated that since Abacus A central question arises: “What will be the new map of supercomputing in Mexico?”

He pointed out that there is a broad horizon ahead in high-performance computing, not only because Coatlicuebut also for the announcement of a national supercomputing network and the infrastructure update that this initiative entails, as well as for advances in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and neuromorphic computing.

“With the announcements we have today, although the panorama has not yet been completely redefined, it will begin to be redrawn with supercomputers with computing capabilities greater than Yucca from the University of Sonora (2.3 petaflops), throughout the next year and the year after that,” he concluded.

List of powerful computers

1.- LNS (National Supercomputing Laboratory of Southeast Mexico, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla).

2.- CADS (Center for Data Analysis and Supercomputing, University of Guadalajara).

3.-CNS (IPICT National Supercomputing Center in San Luis Potosí).

4.- The Data and Systems Center (Cicese Telematics Directorate, in Ensenada, Baja California Norte).

5.- Lancad (National High Performance Computing Laboratory, which is a consortium between Cinvestav, the Metropolitan Autonomous University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico).

6.- Eicar (Conahcyt National Laboratory for Teaching and Innovation Applying High Performance Computing, which is a consortium between UAEMéx, Cinvestav, UdeG, Cicese, Umison).

7.- National Institute of Nuclear Research, Acarus (University of Sonora).

8.- Mandra (Digital Innovation Center of the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico), among others.

Source: Bulletin of the Mexican Physical Society (April–June 2024).