Supercomputer pushes frontiers of LJMU research
From modelling the evolution of the cosmos to simulating how dinosaurs would have walked, researchers at Liverpool John Moores University are pushing the boundaries of science, technology and medicine with the power of computing.
Calculations that previous took months or even years can now be done in hours or days, enabling LJMU research teams to take on even more exciting and ambitious work; such as the engineers who are modelling more efficient ships by lubricating their hulls with air bubbles; and artificial intelligence experts who are using AI to interpret electrocardiogram measurements.
The upscaling of research is in no small part down to a supercomputing facility called Prospero. Commissioned five years ago, and funded by university and external research grants, it is free to researchers at the point of use.
With the most recent upgrades completed in the last couple of weeks, Prospero now has 5,200 compute cores, a total of 40 terabytes of memory, and four GPU cards optimised for artificial intelligence and machine learning tasks - equivalent to having 1,000 powerful desktop computers working together.
Supercomputer
The university has also installed an advanced data storage system similar to those used by the world’s largest supercomputers. This system will soon provide four petabytes or 4,000 terabytes of capacity, enough to store 1 billion songs, or 2,000 billion pages of text.
We used Prospero to analyse early observations from the James Webb Space Telescope
Professor Rob Crain, Astrophysics Research Institute, LJMU
Professor Robert Crain, who oversees the system with LJMU’s Information Technology Services teams, said: “The diversity of the research applications here at LJMU that are accelerated by access to a state-of-the-art HPC facility is remarkable.”
Prof Crain, who is Head of Research and Knowledge Exchange in the Astrophysics Research Institute, explains: “Prospero has enabled us to pursue numerical models that have corroborated key predictions of the prevailing theory of the origin and evolution of the cosmos.
“Excitingly, we recently used Prospero to analyse early observations from the James Webb Space Telescope which demonstrated that these galaxies were the most distant objects ever detected.”
Currently, Prospero is most used in astrophysics, biological sciences, engineering and computer science but is available for researchers in any discipline.
Data from world's telescopes
Much of theoretical astrophysics, in particular, is driven by numerical models, while observational astrophysics is increasingly aided by powerful computers, as the scale and complexity of the data obtained by modern telescopes has grown markedly in the last two decades.
Some of the ARI’s most high-profile research from the past decade has been made possible by numerical simulations and analyses of data from the world’s premier observatories, including the Liverpool Telescope on Gran Canaria. Robert and ARI colleagues are now developing the next generation of simulations and gearing up to explore the vast quantities of data that will be produced by, for example, the Vera Rubin Observatory.
A promotional event next month – which also marks the fifth anniversary of the commissioning of Prospero – is being held at the university. The Prospero@5 Symposium on September 3rd - 4th 2025 aims to celebrate research outcomes enabled by Prospero and to raise awareness of the facility's availability to research colleagues throughout the University.
You can register for the event (deadline August 22) by visiting https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/research/facilities-and-support/high-performance-computing/prospero-at-5-symposium, or contact r.a.crain@ljmu.ac.uk
