Distributed Research using Advanced Computing (DiRAC) is an integrated supercomputing facility used for research in particle physics, astronomy and cosmology in the United Kingdom. DiRAC makes use of multi-core processors and provides a variety of computer architectures for use by the research community.[2][3]
Development
Initially[when?] DiRAC was funded with an investment of £12 million from the Government of the United Kingdom's Large Facilities Capital Fund combined with funds from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and a consortium of universities in the UK. In 2012, the DiRAC facility was upgraded with a further £15 million[2][3] of UK government capital to create DiRAC II which had five installations.
DiRAC-3 was launched in 2021,[4] with three services offered at four sites:[5]
- Data intensive service, jointly hosted by the universities of Cambridge (part share in the 'Cumulus' HPC platform) and Leicester (Data Intensive 3 and Data Intensive 2.5x supercomputers)
- Memory intensive service, hosted by Durham University at the Institute for Computational Cosmology (Memory Intensive 3 (COSMA8) and Memory Intensive 2.5 (COSMA7) supercomputers
- Extreme scaling service, hosted by the University of Edinburgh (Extreme Scaling 'Tursa' supercomputer)
Paul Dirac
DiRAC is a backronym which honours the theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Paul Dirac.[6]
References
- ^ "Mark Wilkinson". DiRAC. Retrieved 13 October 2023.
- ^ a b "DiRAC - Science and Technology Facilities Council". stfc.ac.uk.
- ^ a b "What makes DiRAC special". dirac.ac.uk.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "DiRAC-3 Launch Day". DiRAC. Retrieved 22 August 2023.
- ^ "Resources". DiRAC. Retrieved 22 August 2023.
- ^ Dalitz, Richard H.; Peierls, Rudolf (1986). "Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac. 8 August 1902 – 20 October 1984". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 32. London: Royal Society: 139–185. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1986.0006. JSTOR 770111.
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