The Max Planck Computing and Data Facility (MPCDF)

The Max Planck Computing and Data Facility (MPCDF, formerly known as RZG) is a cross-institutional competence centre of the Max Planck Society to support computational and data sciences. It originated 1961 as the computing centre of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) which was founded 1960 by Werner Heisenberg and the Max Planck Society (MPS).

For the centre's history on supercomputing and data, see here.

In close collaboration with domain scientists from different Max Planck Institutes the MPCDF is engaged in the development and optimization of algorithms and applications for high performance computing as well as in the design and implementation of solutions for data-intensive projects.

The MPCDF operates a state-of-the-art supercomputer, several mid-range compute systems and data repositories for various Max Planck institutes, and provides an up-to-date infrastructure for data management including long-term archival.

Current Max Planck Supercomputer

The current supercomputer is an Intel system with SkyLake  processors and OmniPath interconnect, installed in spring 2018. The peak performance is close to 10 PFlop/s.

HPC Application Support

Application support is given to Max Planck Institutes with high-end computing needs in materials and life sciences, theoretical chemistry, polymer research, astrophysics, plasma physics and other fields.

Data Science and Services

The data science team supports the development and deployment of data management solutions for big data projects in close collaboration with Max Planck scientists,

Archive Systems

Large amounts of experimental data and data from supercomputer simulations are administered and stored with high lifetimes. HSM systems have been in usage since the nineteenhundred seventies. They contain data older than 30 years.