AURELEO: Austrian users at LEONARDO supercomputer

24.06.2024 ZIDblog

In August 2023 the Italian pre-exascale HPC system LEONARDO began the regular operation of its so-called Booster module which draws its enormous computing power from four NVIDIA Ampere GPUs per node. Currently, June 2024, it is the seventh most powerful supercomputer in the world and third most powerful in Europe.

Austria has its share of LEONARDO since it is a partner in the consortium that has built the machine and Austrian users are encouraged to take this opportunity to apply for compute time at LEONARDO’s GPU-accelerated Booster module. In terms of computational power this share is comparable to the already available GPU partition at the current VSC-5 installation.

Hereby VSC announces this Call for Proposals that could benefit from Booster’s multi-GPU nodes.

Eligibility and responsibilities

This call is intended for medium-sized projects (from 50,000 to 100,000 GPU hours) with a duration of 6 or 12 months from resource allocation date.
Since the Booster module comprises multi-GPU nodes your application must efficiently use at least all 4 GPUs available on the node; this includes embarrassingly parallel implementations.
Since VSC has no direct control over time allocation, granted projects need to make sure to use all the resources that have been granted to them, otherwise they are simply lost for Austrian users.

Deadlines

Unlike the usual applications for VSC projects, which are submitted in a rolling fashion, and similar to the way it is handled with PRACE or EuroHPC this call will include cut-offs:

The next application cut-off date is 2024-07-07.
Notification of acceptance will be sent by 2024-07-26.
The projects will start in the beginning of August 2024.

Review of the projects

The technical review is performed by VSC staff according to LEONARDO’s guidelines.
No additional scientific review is required if the planned computations are carried out within a project that has already been approved by a recognised funding agency, such as FWF, FFG, ÖAW, WWTF, ERC, EU, e.g..

High-Level support team is available

Every AURELEO project will have one high-level support team member assigned for assistance.
For this type of call a user can request additional assistance of specialist support.

Application for projects

Applicants have to download the AURELEO application form (PDF document) and fill it in.
Applications shall be doneon the VSC service website service.vsc.ac.at with requesting a funded project for the project part LEONARDO-B. You’ll have to upload the filled AURELEO application form (PDF document) and the proof of funding.
Note, in order to use LEONARDO every user will have to upload a proof of identity to the UserDB of CINECA (LEONARDO’s hosting entity).
LEONARDO’s technical specifications: leonardo-supercomputer.cineca.eu/hpc-system
For any questions related to this call, access and usage of LEONARDO, please, write to: leonardo(at)vsc.ac.at