[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Couchman.Hugh.jpg” caption=”Hugh Couchman”]High Performance Computing (HPC) is a vital component of a diverse range of research initiatives that have already made an impact on Canadian society. If you've turned on the Weather Channel to see when the rain will end, done a Google search on a computer or picked your stock portfolio according to the latest economic forecasts, you've benefited from HPC.

Yesterday marked the release of the Long Range Plan for High Performance Computing, a report that advances world class computationally-based research infrastructure for Canada. Developed with the support of the C3.ca Association and authored by a panel of leading edge compututational researchers, the plan calls for a national strategy to expand the network of supercomputers across the country to foster and enable research collaborations and scientific innovation.

McMaster astrophysicist Hugh Couchman was a member of the author's panel and traveled across Canada to gather input from the research, industry, business and government communities. Couchman is also the Scientific Director of SHARCNET (Shared Hierarchical Academic Research Computing Network) and served on a number of initiatives to promote HPC in Canada.

“To compete and to grow our economy, Canada must actively develop and maintain the crucial infrastructure and skilled people proposed in the plan,” Couchman says.

“The title of the plan: Engines of Discovery: the 21st Century Revolution, is a fitting reference to the Victorian adage that the steam locomotive was an 'engine of change'. In the same way that steam power launched, in many respects, the modern world, so access to and effective use of HPC will be a driver of our world in this century.”

The plan builds on the $240 million invested by the federal and provincial governments, universities, and industry in HPC over the last decade. It recommends the creation of a national agency to provide HPC training for the academic and industry research communities and will also be a source of leadership and overall coordination for HPC in Canada.

“As one of Canada's most research intensive universities, we're particularly excited by the vision of the Long Range Plan for High Performance Computing. Here at McMaster, we've been involved with high performance computing since 2001 as a primary site in the SHARCNET cluster. Our researchers are using HPC to great effect in so many areas and collaborating on projects that will benefit science, industry and the Canadian economy. This plan's recommendations will ultimately improve our research activity and enhance our students' learning environment,” says Mamdouh Shoukri, vice-president, research and international affairs.

The high performance computers at McMaster have been used to run everything from simulations of infectious diseases epidemics, to developing models to understand the properties of materials that might one day make your car a safer vehicle, to simulating the credit risk associated with corporate defaults. The computers our researchers use allow trillions of operations that simply cannot be supported by a desktop computer. Couchman offers the example of an astronomical simulation that took one month to complete on a high performance computer that would have taken eleven years on a single desktop computer.

“High Performance Computing systems make it possible for scientists to conduct research much more quickly than in the past, and to simulate complex or dangerous situations,” says Bruce Attfield, C3.ca's Secretary/Treasurer. “C3.ca's long-range plan will give researchers in Canada access to the supercomputing power required to make leading edge discoveries, which is critical in the competitive world of research.”