CLOUD

At the PDS Technical Conference in Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Institute (MI) has announced a major upgrade to the MGrid computational resources. In its ongoing commitment to building out a regional cyberinfrastructure. MGrid is dedicated to providing corporate, academic and governmental enterprises, working alone and in concert, with tools to create new products and services in less time, with higher quality, and at lower cost. Institute computational systems and services provide the tools needed to model, simulate and visualize the dynamic behavior of products and services in advance of investments in their development and production.

MI is investing $500,000 to double the capacity of its supercomputing 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, 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 supercomputing 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 supercomputing 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.