Agreement with the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of Universidad de Chile will allow its use.
The machine is located at the National Laboratory for High Performance Computing of the Center for Mathematical Modeling.
The Ministry of Public Works (MOP) will make use of the services of the National Laboratory for High Performance Computing (NLHPC) of the Center for Mathematical Modeling of Universidad de Chile (CMM) to analyse the effects of climate change in future infrastructure investments.
The public agency signed an agreement with the Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences of the university to use «Leftraru», the most powerful supercomputer in Chile and second fastest in Latin America according to the Lartop 50 ranking.
The machine will be used with the aim of projecting hydraulic works, early warning systems in catastrophe situations and other necessary public investments in a context such as the Chilean one where draughts, floods, earthquakes, forest fires and volcanic eruptions among other phenomena are produced.
The agreement also allows the Ministry to carry out investigations alongside the CMM, the Center for Climate and Resilience Research (CR2) and other scientists of the Faculty, where Universidad de Chile is also a pioneer.
Jocelyn Fernández, Planning Director of the Ministry of Public Works, affirmed that «the development of knowledge and learning on these natural events is required». Climate change has played as an engine that detonates catastrophe»
Fernández added that «2015 has been the hottest year in the history of the world; since around eight years that we have drought in Chile, at the same time we have witnessed rainfall phenomena with catastrophic effects, such as the one that occurred in Atacama».
Leftraru functions thanks to Conicyt’s funding and has 17 universities and research centers as associates. It was inaugurated in may 2015 and its compute capacity allows the analysis of large quantities of data, giving sense to the great quantity of information that is produced today.
The computer is available for free to all the Chilean scientists and is today in the middle of its financing renovation process. In this new stage is available to different public agencies, including the Ministry of Public Works, the Chilean Agency of Education Quality has also used this infrastructure.
Source: Cooperativa.cl