AsianScientist (Dec. 23, 2024) – How does one measure the passage of time? In milestones and countdowns, in birthdays and anniversaries, in newspaper piles and year-in-review playlists—12 months can simultaneously feel like an extensive stretch of time and the shortest of seasons. Even when multiplied tenfold, a decade can seem like a blip in the history of human civilization.
Yet when it comes to technological advancements, the last 10 years have been jam-packed with milestones. Between countless smartphone model releases and social media app updates, we have witnessed an increasing integration of robots and automation in various sectors; just last year, the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) software like ChatGPT caused excitement and uproar in equal measure.
None of these emerging technologies would have made it to public use if not for the investors and developers who long ago saw the potential of these technologies in creating an impact on society. Similarly, Singapore’s digital transformation has been driven by years of investment in its innovation ecosystem, such as through the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) strategy.
Part and parcel of this RIE plan is the growing need for powerful computing resources, with the National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore playing a pivotal role as the city-state’s first national petascale facility. Although NSCC Singapore officially came to life in 2015, the groundwork was laid as early as the 1980s.
In fact, the NEC SX-1A supercomputer was installed in January 1988 at what was then the Advanced Computation Centre (ACC). Recognizing the value of high-performance computing (HPC) in building a smart economy, the Singapore government put together a strategic team to work toward establishing a local supercomputing facility.
That foresight paid off, as NSCC Singapore today is an innovation hub propelling national initiatives and industry transformation. To commemorate 10 years of NSCC Singapore, we revisit key projects showcasing its role in addressing prevalent societal issues and look ahead at the envisioned impact of supercomputing in Singapore and beyond.
SUPERFUEL FOR R&D
In an era of digitalization, more and more powerful computational tools are being developed to accelerate scientific discovery and the production of various applications. Unsurprisingly, this has led to the rise of supercomputers, with their high-speed computational capabilities taking several sectors by storm, from climate and chemistry to manufacturing and medicine.
Like adding fuel to a fire, the speed advantage and considerable storage capacity offered by supercomputing systems are especially beneficial for AI tasks. Whether for weather prediction or medical diagnosis, AI and deep learning (DL) models must typically be fed large swaths of data to improve accuracy, making the training process laborious and time-consuming. With HPC coming into play, not only is training expedited but the functionalities can also be expanded to combine different data types such as text and images, effectively granting developers the liberty to design more complex applications.
“Using HPC and AI will increasingly be very important to turbo-charge research and development (R&D) efforts,” said Professor Lim Keng Hui, Assistant Chief Executive of the Science and Engineering Research Council at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR). “These technologies can really cut short the entire innovation cycle.”
Keeping abreast with the surge in HPCdriven applications worldwide, Singapore was not to be left behind. A*STAR, together with the National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore and Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), supported the vision to establish a Singapore-based supercomputing facility a decade ago—paving the way for the birth of NSCC Singapore as a National Research Infrastructure funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF).
Since then, many cutting-edge projects and fruitful partnerships have emerged to leverage NSCC Singapore’s HPC resources. For example, in support of the AI Singapore (AISG) strategy, six NVIDIA DGX-1 servers were integrated into ASPIRE 1, the facility’s inaugural petaFLOPS supercomputer. Dubbed AI.Platform@NSCC, it was used to process large AI workloads to enable the development of DL models.
“The [2019 RIE] funding was then used to upgrade the national supercomputing infrastructure resulting in the new ASPIRE 2A supercomputer system that has seven times the compute capacity and twice as many graphics processing units (GPUs) as the first-generation ASPIRE 1,” explained Quek Gim Pew, Chairman of the NSCC Singapore Steering Committee. “In less than a year of initial operations, the ASPIRE 2A is already supporting more than 500 research projects.”
An add-on of new NVIDIA H100 GPUs is also set to launch soon, poised to further facilitate groundbreaking AI-HPC synergies, including training large language models (LLMs). Already underway is a national LLM program spearheaded by AISG. In one project with A*STAR, NSCC Singapore is providing the HPC capabilities to build speech-to-text applications focusing on underserved languages such as Southeast Asian languages for which digital resources are currently limited.
Meanwhile, a partnership with the National University Health System (NUHS) has brought forth the Prescience supercomputer that is meant to build LLM-based applications that can quickly and accurately synthesize clinical notes, estimate patient hospitalization periods and improve dental scans.
Having HPC resources in place also strengthened Singapore’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as clinicians leveraged computational tools to model disease spread. By mapping transmission pathways of viral droplets, health specialists and policymakers could devise more relevant interventions for the community.
Not only are supercomputers able to accelerate existing computational workflows, but they also allow scientists and engineers to venture into unchartered territory. To push the boundaries of quantum computing, NSCC Singapore’s HPC systems will be used to develop algorithms that can run on quantum computer hardware, as part of the National Quantum Computing Hub, a joint initiative with the Centre for Quantum Technologies at NUS and A*STAR’s Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC). Moreover, NSCC Singapore will house a quantum computing facility and help build international collaborations to bolster advances in this sector.
JOINING FORCES FOR IMPACT
Throughout its 10-year history, NSCC Singapore has shone as a beacon of collaboration—simultaneously a beneficiary and a benefactor of multi-sectoral endeavors. Its inception and growth were products of continued endorsement and investment from government and academic stakeholders. In turn, one of NSCC Singapore’s primary mandates is to foster public-private partnerships for undertaking large-scale projects that advance national strategic interests.
Through designated login nodes in the ASPIRE systems, A*STAR, the National Environment Agency (NEA) and multiple institutions of higher learning can enjoy easy access to these supercomputing resources. With increased access comes a kaleidoscope of use cases, magnifying the impact of HPC across industries.
Accelerating Singapore’s precision medicine movement, the combination of supercomputing and biology is giving rise to innovative disease detection algorithms. By analyzing genetics and other background factors, screening technologies are in the pipeline to identify individuals affected by chronic diseases such as cancer and familial hypercholesterolemia, which is marked by high levels of bad cholesterol and a greater risk of heart attacks.
While such technologies are often used for diseases with links to certain genetic or molecular landscapes, NSCC Singapore’s HPC systems are also helping to redefine biomarker discovery—researchers can now tackle mental health disorders whose origins and underlying factors are still unclear and highly diverse. Supercomputing-powered DL models developed by a team at NUS can spot patterns in brain imaging, relating changes in brain macrostructure to pathological conditions while also identifying regional targets for more precise treatments.
In addition to ASPIRE 2A, NSCC Singapore is home to the Köppen system, a 160-teraFLOPS Cray XC50 supercomputer dedicated to climate pattern analysis in partnership with NEA’s Centre for Climate Research Singapore. Equipped to run vast amounts of model simulations in parallel, the HPC system has been crucial in enabling decadeslong climate projections and building real-time weather forecasting models with a high spatial resolution of 400 meters.
Given the substantial energy demands associated with high-speed computing capabilities, NSCC Singapore together with NUS and Surbana Jurong recently embarked on a venture to develop greener HPC systems. At the Liquefied Gas Terminal at Jurong Island, the inauguration of the Green Modular Data Centre System is a proof-of-value achievement that underscores the importance of keeping the planet’s health in mind even as more powerful technologies permeate through societal systems.
Finally, NSCC Singapore is also focusing on developing HPC talent to contribute to the industry and its advancements. This includes partnering with institutions like A*STAR’s IHPC to build tech capabilities as well as working with institutes of higher learning on internships and student training. “HPC talent will be the crucial element that is needed in developing such tools,” said Quek. “Nurturing and growing the talent capability will also be an NSCC Singapore focus and will require a multi-pronged approach.”
A GROWING LEGACY
Through persistent investments in innovation and enacting policies conducive to the R&D ecosystem, Singapore has well established itself as a nucleus for R&D and technological progress. Although still in its infancy, NSCC Singapore has already showcased the importance of supercomputing in driving societal development, serving as a hallmark of the city-state’s ongoing digital transformation across a variety of industries.
“Computing and digital tools are going to become indispensable. They will be used to solve many of today’s socio-economic issues, ranging from climate and sustainability to healthcare,” Lim remarked. “I do see that NSCC Singapore will only grow more and more important.”
Evidently, HPC will remain a critical part of driving the next generation of impact-focused applications, with NSCC Singapore and collaborators standing as flag-bearers of innovation. So much has already been achieved, yet so much more is still to come for Singapore’s supercomputing resources and the transformative applications they can power.
