The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has received $100 million in Federal funding to help pay for a new high-performance computer (HPC) system that will harness artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) capabilities to tackle advanced climate and weather research.
The new HPC – dubbed Rhea – will assist with research on weather, climate, ocean, and ecosystem prediction through graphics processing units utilizing AI and ML. According to a NOAA release, the system will be installed as part of the NOAA Environmental Security Computing Center (NESCC) in Fairmont, W.Va.
NOAA, which is part of the Department of Commerce, said in a Sept. 3 announcement that it is receiving the funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
“The Rhea high-performance computer system adds needed computing capacity for NOAA to expand critical research that supports the nation’s climate resilience,” Michael Morgan, assistant secretary of Commerce, said in a statement. “The new system will strengthen NOAA’s exploration and application of [AI/ML] capabilities, which will ultimately improve weather, ocean and climate forecasting, ecosystem modeling and the use of satellite Earth observations to understand climate changes.”
The system will provide monitoring of marine life species, weather forecasting, and “specific environmental phenomena” modeling, and it will also be used to model development for drought, flood, and wildfire prediction and forecasting.
The system will boost NOAA’s current total HPC capacity from 35 to 43 petaflops, after adding eight petaflops of speed and integrating with an additional HPC system at NESCC. One petaflop produces about one thousand trillion operations per second.
“This investment in high-performance computing will result in significant scientific and economic impacts,” Zachary Goldstein, chief information officer and director of high performance computing at NOAA, said in a statement.
The $100 million federal funding will support the installation of a modular data center at NESCC, housing Rhea, with potential for future HPC expansion, NOAA said. Rhea will also join NOAA’s Research and Development HPC system, which includes centers in Boulder, Colo.; Princeton, N.J.; Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and at Mississippi State University’s campus in Starkville, Miss.
The IRA, passed in 2022, provides $3.3 billion in funding to NOAA which is distributed through two main initiatives, including $2.6 billion for climate resilience and environmental justice, and $200 million for climate data and services.
