Chandra-High Performance Computing Cluster (HPC)

The Chandra High performance computing cluster (HPC) provides a powerful computing platform for research in engineering and physical sciences. This system has been operational since June 2017. The HPC consists of 64 compute nodes, each with a dual 12-core Intel processor. Each core runs at 2.2 GHz and has 4 GB of RAM per core. The HPC is one of the first systems in India to use a 100 Gbps high-speed OmniPath interconnect from Intel. The system provides about 50 TFlops of computing power. Chandra also accesses 100 TB of disk space setup as a parallel file system running Lustre from Intel.

The HPC is used by faculty, research staff and students at IIT Palakkad to investigate complex research problems in science and engineering. Some of the problems currently being studied are :

  • Understanding and designing materials with novel physical properties by performing    atomistic quantum mechanical simulations.

  • Design of nanoscale transistors for next generation electronic applications

  • Design of novel bio-molecules with applications in medicine.

  • Design of large structures such as bridges and buildings.

  • Performing computational fluid dynamic simulations

  • Understanding the process of heat transfer in complex systems such as engines.

  • Solving non-equilibrium dynamics in quantum Hamiltonians

                                             Hardware Specifications
Peak computing power 54TFlops
Total number of nodes 64
Number of cores per node  24
Total number of core 1536
RAM per core  4 GB
Total RAM   6 TB
Storage Usable  100 TB
Interconnection Speed 100 Gbps