On 25 April 2019, the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) and the IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP) celebrated the opening of their supercomputer Aleph. About 80 people attended the opening ceremony at the IBS headquarter. Participants included IBS President Doochul Kim, Climate Change Center Chairman Chang-Nee Kang, University of Science & Technology President Kil-Choo Moon, Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology President Woong-seo Kim, Prof. Thomas Ludwig, the Director of the German Climate Computing Center, ICCP researchers and officials from IBS and other institutions.
Following opening remarks by IBS President Doochul Kim, Axel Timmermann, the Director of IBS Center for Climate Physics, gave a welcoming speech. “Using Aleph, ICCP will make major breakthroughs in the understanding of the climate system and its sensitivity to future anthropogenic greenhouse emissions.”, said Director Timmermann.
Thereafter, participants visited the new IBS supercomputing facility. Young-Jin Lee, the IBS IT team manager provided an overview of the technical specifications of Aleph.
The second session of the opening ceremony focused more on the applications and the role of supercomputing in making scientific breakthroughs. Axel Timmermann gave an overview on the history of the Aleph supercomputer and the planned simulations. Thomas Ludwig, the Director of German Climate Computing Center (DKRZ), then gave a keynote presentation ‘Climate Supercomputing in Germany’. Thomas Ludwig emphasized the importance of using supercomputers for earth system science.
Aleph will help in making major discoveries in the field of climate physics, theoretical physics, and computational science.