Falcon

Falcon Supercomputer

Falcon is an SGI ICE X supercomputer currently operated and used by a consortium of Idaho research universities (University of Idaho, Boise State University, Idaho State University). Falcon is owned by Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and ranked 97th on the Top 500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers when it was operationalized in 2014 and significantly upgraded in 2017. Through a Memorandum of Understanding (January 2022), management and use of Falcon was transferred to the Idaho research computing consortium.

Falcon currently consists of approximately 932 nodes with dual Intel Xeon E5-2695v4 18-core processors running at 2.1 GHz (36 cores per node) for a total of 33,552 cores capable of more than 1 PetaFLOPS of compute capacity. Each node on Falcon is configured with 128 GB of RAM for a total of about 120TB of overall system memory, uses an Infiniband-based interconnect configured as a 7-dimensional hypercube, and uses a 1.3 petabyte fault-tolerant Lustre filesystem.

Faculty, staff, and students from the three Idaho universities access Falcon free of charge. Falcon is connected to the universities via the Idaho Regional Optical Network (IRON) which enables high speed data transfers to both local and remote compute centers.

Benjamin Oswald

Director Computational Resources Core
University of Idaho
boswald@uidaho.edu

Joseph Leister

Systems Administrator
Research Computing and Data Services
University of Idaho
jleister@uidaho.edu

Michael Ennis

High Performance Computing Solutions Architect
Idaho State University
michaelennis@isu.edu

Frank Willmore

HPC Systems Administrator IV
Boise State University
frankwillmore@boisestate.edu

Idaho C3+3 Collaboration. (2022). Falcon: High Performance Supercomputer. University of Idaho. https://doi.org/10.7923/falcon.id

Falcon News & Projects

Video Recap: Introduction to Falcon

Benji Oswald from the University of Idaho discusses Falcon, a supercomputer owned by the Idaho National Laboratory since 2014. Falcon underwent a significant update in 2017, which included replacing all the processors, resulting in 932 nodes. While some nodes have experienced hardware failures over time, Falcon still boasts a substantial capacity of 33,000 total cores. Compared to other universities in the region, Falcon is a magnitude larger.

Using Falcon for Nuclear Salts

Written by: Kelsey Swenson, IIDS Scientific Writing Intern Molten salt reactors are advanced nuclear technologies capable of generating efficient electrical energy. Scientists such as John Russell, Associate Director for University of Idaho’s Center for Advanced Energy Studies (CAES), use the Falcon supercomputer to work on the fundamental physics behind these new molten salt technologies to…

Falcon Helps to Create 3D Models Of Water Flow Through Sediment

Written by: Kelsey Swenson, IIDS Scientific Writing Intern Falcon’s speed and efficiency enables the Center for Ecohydraulics Research to carve out their own niche in the world of hydraulics. “With Falcon, we can go finer, we can go deeper, and we’re able to not only calculate but also explore how the flow behaves,” says Angel…

Simulating Colliding Black Holes Using Falcon

Written by: Kelsey Swenson, IIDS Scientific Writing Intern As two black holes orbit in space, they emit gravitational waves into the universe. These waves carry energy keeping the black holes apart. But as the waves get stronger, the black holes can spiral towards each other and merge into one giant black hole. In nearby Hanford,…

Falcon Workshop

Learn how to use the newly available Falcon Supercomputer to accelerate your research! At this hands-on workshop, research computing experts will walk you through how to log in, transfer data, submit jobs, and answer any questions you have about using Falcon for your specific research. This event is open to faculty, staff, students, and postdocs…

Falcon Supercomputer Now Available to U of I Researchers

MOSCOW, Idaho — Falcon, a supercomputer offering more than 10 times the processing power of any academic cluster in the region, is now available for use by University of Idaho faculty, staff and student researchers. U of I is one of three universities that gained access to Falcon in April. The supercomputer is housed at…