Science: How Brain Research Makes New Demands on Supercomputing
In the Journal Science, Katrin Amunts and Thomas Lippert, member of the Helmholtz-Research Field Information, explain how advances in neuroscience demand high-performance computing technology and will ultimately need exascale computing power. (Source: Forschungszentrum Jülich – Press Releases)
“Understanding the brain in all its complexity requires insights from multiple scales – from genomics, cells and synapses to the whole-organ level. This means working with large amounts of data, and supercomputing is becoming an indispensable tool to tackle the brain,” says Katrin Amunts, Scientific Director of the Human Brain Project (HBP), Director of the C. and O. Vogt-Institute of Brain Research, Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf , Director of the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1) at Research Centre Jülich as well as member of Program 2: “Natural, Artificial and Cognitive Information Processing” of the Research Field Information and spokesperson of Topic 5: “Decoding Brain Organization and Dysfunction”.
“It’s an exciting time in supercomputing,” says Thomas Lippert, Director of the Jülich Supercomputing Centre, leader of supercomputing in the Human Brain Project and spokesperson of Program 1: “Engineering Digital Futures” in the Research Field Information. “We get a lot of new requests from researchers of the neuroscience community that need powerful computing to tackle the brain’s complexity. In response, we are developing new tools tailored to investigating the brain.”
The human brain contains around 86 billion neurons that form trillions of contact points. Imaging an entire brain at cellular resolutions produces data in the range of several Petabytes; electron microscopy of a whole brain would amount to more than one Exabyte of data. “Brain research, medicine and information technologies face challenges that can only be addressed by joining the forces of all three domains,” says Amunts.
In Europe, the big data challenge of neuroscience is addressed by the Human Brain Project’s research infrastructure EBRAINS. It provides a range of tools, data-, and compute-services to brain researchers. This includes access to supercomputing systems via the Fenix federated Infrastructure, which has been set up by Europe’s leading Supercomputing Centres as part of the Human Brain Project and will serve communities beyond brain research.
Within the next five years, Europe is aiming to deploy its first two exascale supercomputers. They will be acquired by the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU), a joint initiative between the EU, European countries and private partners supported by multi-billion Euro funding. “The brain research community stands ready to use these exascale systems,” says Amunts. (Source: Forschungszentrum Jülich – Press Releases)
The original press release can be found at:
Science: How Brain Research Makes New Demands on Supercomputing
The original publication can be found at:
Brain research challenges supercomputing, Katrin Amunts and Thomas Lippert Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.abl8519
Localization in the Helmholtz Research Field Information:
Helmholtz Research Field Information, Joint Lab Supercomputing and Modeling for the Human Brain (SMHB)
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Dr. Thomas Lippert
Head of Jülich Supercomputing Centre and Director at the Institute for Advanced Simulation
Forschungszentrum Jülich
Phone: +49 2461/61-6402
E-Mail: th.lippert@fz-juelich.de
Prof. Dr. Katrin Amunts
Director of the Institute of Neuroscience and Medicine (INM-1)
Forschungszentrum Jülich
Phone: +49 2461/61-4300
E-Mail: k.amunts@fz-juelich.de
Contact for this press release:
Peter Zekert
Press Officer, Human Brain Project
Forschungszentrum Jülich
Phone: +49 2461 61 96860
E-Mail: press@humanbrainproject.eu
