CUDA in Action

Princeton's Iain Couzin is an expert in the study of collective animal behavior. His lab uses experimental systems - from ants and locust swarms to schooling fish and even human crowds - to explore the fundamental principles that underlie collective behavior. "GPU computing has utterly transformed the science we can do," he says.

William Putman, research meteorologist, aims to maximize the impact of satellite observations in climate, weather and atmospheric composition prediction using comprehensive global models and data assimilation. Using GPU acceleration and CUDA, his goal is to improve the throughput for the intermediate resolution models used in climate prediction and assessments.

Denis Bastieri leads the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) team, which observes and analyzes high-energy gamma rays from galaxies, black holes, pulsars and supernovae. Providing computational capabilities at one tenth the cost of conventional systems, CUDA GPUs allow him to accelerate his research and reduce the raw data coming from the satellite (around 120 GB/day) into meaningful physical information.

According to HP Labs' Ren Wu, CUDA is a “game-changer” that enable the rapid analysis of massive volumes of business intelligence data. Using GPUs to accelerate big data analytics on multiple scales, HP Labs has achieved a 5-20x performance advantage over a pure CPU approach. GPUs will enable Ren Wu to gain new insights in the understanding of a number of critical areas, such as the environment, human health and global financial systems.

Postdoc Fellow Joshua Adelman is harnessing the computational power of CUDA GPUs to better understand and treat diseases, including ALS, epilepsy and Type 2 diabetes. Using molecular dynamics, Adelman is simulating transport proteins that may hold the key to the development of new and more effective treatments. GPU acceleration has provided a several hundred-fold increase in protein simulation throughput.

Virginia Tech is the inaugural research partner for the NVIDIA Foundation's Compute the Cure initiative. Team leader Wu-Chun Feng comments: "We plan to use the award to fundamentally change the way cancer biologists conduct their science....Supercomputing is no longer just the domain of big-iron supercomputers but also of personal desktop or deskside supercomputers. The domain area that I can foresee really benefiting the most from heterogeneous computing is the area of personalized medicine, which tailors healthcare to individual patients."

Ross Walker developed AMBER, a molecular dynamics (MD) software package for the simulation of biomolecules. Simulations help bio-physicists and computational chemists drive scientific discovery, such as creating more effective drugs to treat a range of diseases, e.g., the H1N1 virus. With GPU acceleration, AMBER is helping researchers dramatically speed up the process of developing better treatments.

Biophotonics leverages optics/light to enhance research in medicine and the life sciences. Today, histological analysis with microscopy is a primary methodology for cancer diagnosis. However, it can be difficult to identify the type of cancer. CUDA GPUs enable Alexander Doronin to accelerate simulations by 1000x and to accelerate new biophotonics techniques.

Anders Eklund specializes in medical image processing. His area of interest is functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which identifies brain activity from magnetic resonance images as a means to identify and treat a variety of brain afflictions. Eklund has deployed GPU computing to save five years of processing time during the development and testing of a new algorithm for non-parametric statistical analysis of fMRI data.

Jesse Rosenzweig and his team at Elemental Technologies have developed high-performance video algorithms for heterogeneous GPU/CPU architectures. Elemental integrates CUDA GPUs to decompress, process and recompress content in the video processing pipeline. The resulting system allows media companies to deliver high-quality video streams of live events, satellite feeds, sports and more to TVs, PCs, tablets, and other mobile devices in real-time.

Allan P. Engsig-Karup and researchers at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) are focused on estimating the flow kinematics and design loads on ocean structures, such as ships, oil platforms, energy devices, where predictions are required for the maximum expected lifetime load. The team has achieved impressive scalability results for the GPU-accelerated implementation of its OceanWave3D wave simulation model.