Technology


New Swedish supercomputer is powered by Hewlett Packard Enterprise and AMD


T e Swedish Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm is getting a 13.5PFlop/s supercomputer named “Dardel”. T e machine will be supplied by Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), featuring AMD’s EPYC processors and Instinct GPU accelerators.


T e supercomputer is named in honour


of the Swedish author T ora Dardel and her husband, the painter Nils Dardel. It will replace the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing’s current fl agship system to focus on subjects such as computational fl uid dynamics, biophysics and quantum chemistry. “We have recently seen a dramatic increase


in the need for researchers to use accelerators – mainly in the form of GPUs. We will soon be able to meet that demand through the accelerator partition in Dardel,” said Professor Hans Karlsson, Director of Swedish National


The 13.5PFlop/s supercomputer, “Dardel”


Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC). T e Dardel system will be installed in two


phases. HPE will deliver the CPU partition and a storage system before the summer. T is initial phase of the computer will provide scientists with about 65,000 CPU cores for performing their research calculations. T e second phase of Dardel comprises a GPU partition, to be delivered in the autumn. Researchers will start


using the fi rst phase of Dardel from July this year and the second from January 2022. KTH Royal Institute of Technology in


Stockholm was founded in 1827 and is today considered one of Europe’s leading technical and engineering universities and a key centre of innovation. It is Sweden’s largest technical research and learning institution. Current projects include sustainable solutions for climate change, energy supply, urbanisation and quality of life for the rapidly-growing elderly population. “We are addressing these with world-leading,


high-impact research and education in natural sciences and all branches of engineering, as well as in architecture, industrial management, urban planning, history and philosophy. Almost two-thirds of the SEK 4 billion turnover relates to research,” said Karlsson.


Energy-harvesting technology will be used to make roads safer


An eco-friendly energy-harvesting smart sensor could help make roads safer by identifying potentially dangerous driver behaviour. Triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) are


an emerging technology that harvest freely- available mechanical energy from human activities. Now, engineers from the University of Surrey reveal how they used recycled plastic cups and silk cocoon waste to develop a soſt and skin-friendly self-powered sensor. When coupled with an AI system and applied in a car setting, the smart sensor could fl ag potentially dangerous driving trends, such as slow brake reaction times, for example. T e highly fl exible and biocompatible sensor could be used as a wearable or placed within the fabric of the steering wheel, horn, gear stick or brake pedal. In tests, the sensor provided real-time feedback on the driver’s actions, which allowed the AI system to compute performance. “We are all excited by how AI will infl uence


future consumer electronics, but this future must also be friendly to our planet. Our recycled silk-based smart sensor technology is a hint of what the future holds and, with support from industry, we believe we can soon


Making the roads safer with energy-harvesting technology


bring it to market,” said Dr Bhaskar Dudem, principal author of the study and Research Fellow at the University of Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute. T e sensor will be used in other


applications, too. “Whilst in this example we tested our sensors


to monitor driver behaviour, we believe the ideal application of the self-powered smart sensor technology is in future driverless cars and Industry 4.0 automation systems. T is


eco-friendly cutting-edge project inspires us at the Advanced Technology Institute to keep inventing solutions to real-world problems faced by society,” said Professor Ravi Silva, Director of the ATI. T e sensor was developed in collaboration


with Kyung Hee University in South Korea. T e project is funded jointly by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UK, and the National Research Foundation of Korea.


www.electronicsworld.co.uk April 2021 05


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