In Novosibirsk, they wanted to persuade programmers and mathematicians to transfer to the university for the opportunity to use modern equipment
Three Novosibirsk institutes almost agreed to sacrifice their independence and join the university for … the opportunity to use a supercomputer. The Ministry of Science and Higher Education has promised to build a supercomputer center in Novosibirsk by 2025, but it has already been proposed today to reorganize academic institutions, transferring them under the wing of Novosibirsk State University. The consent paper, signed by the head of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Valentin Parmon and the governor of the region, almost launched the transition procedure, but the Great Academy (RAS) intervened in the matter. The MK correspondent learned about the details of the struggle of scientists for a place “under the sun”, that is, at the modern scientific equipment.
Did Valentin Parmon want to secretly from the leadership of the Russian Academy of Sciences deprive the three institutions of legal independence? Unlikely. Unfortunately, the Chairman of the SB RAS did not answer the calls of journalists on Friday, but there is information (it is confirmed by the Novosibirsk University) that the papers signed so far only talked about the intentions of the reorganization.
Needless to say, Novosibirsk has been dreaming of a world-class supercomputer for a long time. It is necessary for all areas of science: for geneticists who calculate possible variants of gene mutations, and for bioinformatics and chemists who design new substances with desired properties, and for the creators of artificial intelligence … Moreover, in three years, they will build the source of the world’s most powerful synchrotron radiation SKIF, and it will be simply impossible to process the data obtained on it without a supercomputer!
The new supercomputer center (SCC), which was decided to be built on the basis of Novosibirsk State University, has even been given a name: Lavrentyev, in honor of the founder of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Akademgorodok, Academician Mikhail Alekseevich Lavrentyev.
The developers promise that it will become one of the most advanced in Russia, with a capacity of 10-15 petaflops. For comparison, today the most powerful machine is the computer of one of the banks called Christofari, which has a speed of only 8.5 petaflops, the Lomonosov supercomputer at Moscow State University. Lomonosov has a capacity of 5 petaflops. Of course, both 8 and 15 petaflops are, compared to world-class supercomputers today, a kindergarten. World record holders such as the Japanese Fugaku machine are already reaching 537 petaflops! But we, as they say, are happy with what they offer us.
Help “MK”: Flops is a unit of measurement of computer performance, showing how many operations per second it is capable of performing. Petaflops – 10 to the 15th power of flops.
The ministry, which systematically promotes the idea of reorganizing the former academic institutions, apparently could not help but take the opportunity to carry out organizational reshuffles: we are including you in the SKC, and you are giving three institutes under the roof of the university (Federal Research Center for Information and Computational Technologies, Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical geophysicists of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and A.P. Ershov Institute of Informatics Systems of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences). All of them have separate computing nodes, but their power is below average. At the same time, the Institute of Informatics Systems and the Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics are classified by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation in the second category, and therefore cannot count on additional development funding.
Based on their considerations of saving these institutions, they apparently decided to merge with the university. They were not going to lay off anyone, they say, there are already not enough specialists. Only now they forgot to consult with the scientific councils of scientific organizations and the joint scientific councils of the SB RAS in the areas of science.
“Everything turned out somewhat clumsily,” one of the academicians assessed what happened. “After all, according to the rules, without the consent of the academic councils, no decisions on the reorganization of institutions are possible.”
Over the past week, meetings of academic councils were held in each of the three institutes. Most of the participants were in favor of the fact that the construction project of the Lavrentiev SCC should be supported, but while maintaining the institutes as an independent legal entity.
And what was possible? It turns out you can. If the institutes do not merge into the university, the leadership, in order for scientists to have access to the supercomputer, will simply have to develop a new form of future relations between the research institute and the university, for example, something like a consortium or separate divisions as part of the newly organized supercomputer center.