On August 26, the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) at the University of Texas at Austin announced it had selected Sabey Data Centers (SDC Austin) as a colocation partner for the Horizon supercomputer, part of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Leadership Class Computing Facility (LCCF).
Sabey reports that Horizon will be the largest academic supercomputer in the NSF portfolio dedicated to open scientific research and will offer a significant performance boost over the current NSF leadership-class computing system, Frontera, which will feature general-purpose processors and specialized accelerators for AI research.
Dan Stanzione, executive director of TACC and vice chancellor for research at The University of Texas at Austin, reported that in addition to the Horizon computer, a future LCCF system will also be installed at Sabey.
“We have formed a unique partnership with Sabey to leverage all the benefits of colocation for our very specific needs of cutting-edge, high-density supercomputing,” Stanzione said in a press release. “The demands of AI are driving commercial data center space to resemble supercomputing data centers: liquid-cooled, high-density, and highly efficient. We look forward to building an innovative and productive partnership as we expand off-campus and work more closely than ever with the private sector.”
Mark Noonan, senior vice president of revenue at Sabey Data Centers, said in the same press release, “We are excited to partner with TACC on Horizon, providing the robust infrastructure required for this groundbreaking supercomputer. Our innovative design, integrating both liquid and air cooling, will enable us to support the extreme density required by Horizon while also meeting our sustainability goals.”
