Fujitsu Launches Data-Driven Social Creation Platform in Joint Project with 9 Universities and 2 Research Institutes

Mar 10, 2021 09:00 JST

Source: Fujitsu Ltd

TOKYO, Mar 10, 2021 - (JCN Newswire) - Fujitsu today announced the completion of its Data-Driven Social Creation Platform to contribute to the realization of the Japanese government's Society 5.0 concept(1), which presents a vision of a new, data-intensive society. The new platform commenced operations on March 9, 2021, and will be jointly operated by 9 universities and 2 research institutes(2) in Japan.

The new platform was installed in March 2021 in the Kashiwa II Campus Research Building of the University of Tokyo. In collaboration with the Academic Information Network "SINET(3)" operated by the National Institute of Informatics (NII), the new platform will provide a wide range of computing resources and data collection, storage, and analysis functions to universities and research institutions throughout Japan.

The Data-Driven Social Creation Platform consists of 368 next generation Fujitsu Server PRIMERGY CX2550 units equipped with the latest CPU and 40 units of the next generation model of Fujitsu Server PRIMERGY GX2570 equipped with high-end GPUs(4), as well as a storage system with a total of 27 petabytes storage capacity, optimized for high-speed processing and big data utilization.

Fujitsu will continue to support leading-edge research leveraging big data at academic institutions globally.

Background

In recent years, data has become an important asset in society, and a growing need exists for high-performance data platforms that can aggregate data generated in various places and acquire new knowledge through sophisticated analysis. To realize the data-intensive society that the Society 5.0 aims to achieve, the 9 universities and 2 research institutes participating in the joint project needed a platform that could collect, accumulate, and analyze data from all universities and research institutes in Japan, as well as the ability to scale the system quickly according to future applications and needs.

By leveraging its strength in system integration, Fujitsu proposed a high-performance system that integrates a large-capacity storage system, virtual infrastructure, and network equipment based on Fujitsu's latest x86 servers, and received an order for the new platform. The platform provides a wide range of computing resources to universities and research institutions across the country through the "SINET" operated by NII. In addition, it is linked to the "Calculation, data and learning" integration supercomputer system "Wisteria/BDEC-01", which is scheduled to be introduced to the Information Technology Center of the University of Tokyo in May 2021, to realize highly accurate simulations using data collected with the new platform.

Features of the Data-Driven Social Creation Platform

1. Collaborate with "SINET" to create an environment in which data can be collected, stored, and analyzed in real time
It is possible to collect, store and analyze data in real time by connecting databases owned by all universities and research institutes in Japan to the new platform's computing resources and storage through the "SINET" network. This makes it easy for data providers and users in various fields to work together and strongly supports development work.
By using the virtualization platform, the environment in which the user can flexibly utilize computing resources and storage capacity according to the application and needs was constructed.

2. High-precision simulation in conjunction with a high-performance computing environment
The new platform achieves highly accurate simulations by linking with the "Wisteria/BDEC-01" at the Information Technology Center of the University of Tokyo and the supercomputer system "AI Bridging Cloud Infrastructure(ABCI)" at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan.

System Overview of the Data-Driven Social Creation Platform

1. Integration of IaaS platform to provide high speed computing power and computing resources to users with more than 400 latest x86 servers

It consists of 368 units of the next-generation model of PRIMERGY CX2550 with two CPUs (3rd Gen Intel Xeon Scalable processors, Code Name: Ice lake) per node and 40 units of the next-generation model of PRIMERGY GX2570 with eight high-end GPUs NVIDIA A100 Tensor Core GPU per node, achieving 8.5 petaflops(5) total theoretical operation performance.

By combining x86 servers with the latest CPUs and x86 servers with the latest GPUs, the new platform combines the functions of x86 servers with the high-speed computing capabilities required to utilize AI and other technologies to provide computing resources that can be used by a wide range of customers.

By integrating the virtualization infrastructure VMware vSphere 7 into all x86 servers, Fujitsu has created an IaaS platform that can flexibly provide computing resources to thousands of projects at the same time according to the user's application and needs.

2. Interconnects with leading storage system and networking equipment
Through its system integration, Fujitsu has built a system that can be interconnected with leading-edge storage systems and network equipment provided by its partners. This enables efficient and secure data collection, storage, and analysis.
- A large-scale storage system manufactured by DataDirect Networks Japan, Inc., with a total capacity of 27 petabytes
- Network equipment from NVIDIA Corporation that enables high-speed data transfer in the storage network portion
-High-security networking equipment from Juniper Networks, Inc. in the front-end to external networks
- Optical discs made by Sony Corporation that can store large amounts of data for several decades

(1) Society 5.0
An initiative proposed by the Japanese government as a vision of the future society Japan should aim for. It refers to a new society that follows the hunter-gatherer society (Society 1.0), the agricultural society (Society 2.0), the industrial society (Society 3.0), and the information society (Society 4.0). It aims to realize a new society in which economic development and solutions to social issues are compatible by incorporating new technologies that affect the way society should be, such as IoT, robots, AI, and big data, into all industries and social lives.
(2) 9 universities and 2 laboratories
Hokkaido University, Tohoku University, University of Tsukuba, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Nagoya University, Kyoto University, Osaka University, Kyushu University, National Institute of Informatics, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
(3) SINET
Abbreviation for Science Information NETwork.
(4) GPU
An abbreviation for Graphics Processing Units. A computing device for performing processing specialized in image processing and screen drawing.
(5) Petaflops
PFLOPS (Peta Floating-point Operations Per Second). Peta is 1,000 trillion (10 to the 15th power). 1,000 trillion floating point operations per second.
(6) Tebibytes
A unit of storage capacity that is 2 to the power of 40 bytes.

Source: Fujitsu Ltd
Sectors: Enterprise IT