About the Max Planck Computing and Data Facility

About the Max Planck Computing and Data Facility

The Max Planck Computing and Data Facility (MPCDF, formerly known as RZG) is a cross-institutional competence centre of the Max Planck Society to support computational and data sciences. It originated 1961 as the computing centre of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP), which was founded 1960 by Werner Heisenberg and the Max Planck Society (MPS).

For the centre's history on supercomputing and data, see here.

In close collaboration with domain scientists from different Max Planck Institutes the MPCDF is engaged in the development and optimization of algorithms and applications for high performance computing as well as in the design and implementation of solutions for data-intensive projects.

The MPCDF operates state-of-the-art supercomputers, several mid-range computer systems and data repositories for various Max Planck institutes, and provides an up-to-date infrastructure for data management including long-term archival.

Current Max Planck Supercomputers

The current supercomputers are an Intel system named Cobra with Intel SkyLake processors and OmniPath interconnect (theoretical peak performance: ca. 11 PFlop/s), installed in spring 2018 and a Lenovo system named Raven with Intel IceLake processors, Nvidia A100 GPUs and InfiniBand interconnect (theoretical peak performance: ca. 25 PFlop/s), installed in spring 2021.

HPC and AI Application Support

Application support is given to Max Planck Institutes with high-end computing needs in materials and life sciences, theoretical chemistry, polymer research, astrophysics, plasma physics and other fields.

Data Science and Services

The data science team supports the development and deployment of data management solutions for big data projects in close collaboration with Max Planck scientists,

Archive Systems

Large amounts of experimental data and data from supercomputer simulations are administered and stored with high lifetimes. HSM systems have been in usage since the 1970s. They contain data older than 30 years.

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