In November the world’s fastest and most powerful volunteer-built network will go live in the Denver Convention Center, home to this year’s International Conference for High Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis, or SC.
SC23’s temporary network, known as SCinet, will achieve record speeds of up to 6.71 Terabits per second, up from 5.01 Tbps for SC22. This is not about linking up conference booths and running keynotes smoothly, although SCinet will also do that, over roughly 60 miles of fiber-optic infrastructure. The goal of SCinet and its nearly 200 volunteers is to push the boundaries of networking technologies by supporting workshops, demos, and collaborations that showcase the industry’s leading innovations.
Those volunteers, who come from nine countries and represent 113 institutions, are split into 18 teams. Staff from the Department of Energy’s high-speed, cutting-edge scientific network, Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), have long been closely involved, as have their colleagues from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center. In addition to person-hours, ESnet is one of several circuit and spectrum providers among the 30 companies and organizations that have donated an estimated $43 million worth of hardware, software, and services to SCinet. This year, ESnet has been awarded platinum status in recognition of its hardware and services contributions.