Supercomputing, big data and artificial intelligence are crucial tools in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Around the world, researchers, corporations and governments are urgently devoting their computing resources to this global crisis. This column collects the biggest news about how advanced technologies are helping us fight back against COVID-19.

LLNL’s Jim Brase describes the DOE’s fight against COVID-19

On the This Week in HPC podcast, Jim Brase of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) spoke with Addison Snell about how Lawrence Livermore and other Department of Energy labs are leveraging their resources against COVID-19. Brase also spoke to how LLNL is coping with COVID-19 internally by operating with minimal workforces and focusing predominantly on COVID-19 research. To learn more, listen to the podcast below or read the transcript here.

AMD announces HPC fund for COVID-19 research

On the heels of AMD’s announcement that it is joining the COVID-19 HPC Consortium, AMD CEO Lisa Su has announced that it is creating a new HPC fund to advance medical research on COVID-19. The fund includes an initial donation of $15 million-worth of ready-to-install HPC nodes powered by AMD hardware. In the announcement, AMD called for interested research institutions to contact them via email. To read more, click here.



Korea’s national supercomputing center dedicates resources to COVID-19

Researchers at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) are utilizing their Nurion supercomputer to crunch drug candidates for COVID-19. So far, the supercomputer — which placed 14th on the most recent Top500 list of the world’s most powerful publicly ranked supercomputers — has examined 19,168 drug molecules to see how they interact with the main protease of the coronavirus. Of those molecules, the researchers identified 43 that moved on to further molecular dynamics simulations. Of those 43, eight drug candidates were selected for further research. To read more, click here.

BP’s Center for High-Performance Computing joins the COVID-19 research cause

In another example of private entities joining the public fight against COVID-19, BP has announced that it is providing access to its Center for High-Performance Computing (CHPC) in Houston to the COVID-19 HPC Consortium. Researchers can submit their proposals through the XSEDE portal for the consortium, where they can be matched with HPC resources, including BP’s new addition. BP is also making available the expertise of its Biosciences Center. To read more, click here.

UTEP uses supercomputers to work on COVID-19 vaccine

A team of researchers at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) are applying supercomputing in the hunt for a COVID-19 vaccine. Like many other efforts, UTEP’s is focusing on debilitating the coronavirus’ crucial spike protein, which allows it to infect human cells. The researchers are using supercomputing resources at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC), as well as crowdsourced computing resources through [email protected] To read more, visit the HPCwire article here.

MGHPCC expands HPC access for COVID-19 researchers

The Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center (MGHPCC), which is operated by a consortium of universities, has announced that it is making its HPC resources available to external researchers studying COVID-19. While researchers inside MGHPCC had already been working on COVID-19 research, this marks the first expansion of those resources to researchers outside the consortium. For more information, click here.

SDSC researchers develop potential COVID-19 protease inhibitors

A duo of San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) researchers have applied supercomputing to develop possible inhibitors of COVID-19’s protease. Using a “pharmacophore” model, they conducted data mining of FDA-approved drugs, eventually identifying 64 candidate inhibitors among the preexisting drugs. The results included two HIV protease inhibitors, two hepatitis C protease inhibitors and several drugs that have already shown promising results in testing. To read more, click here.

Researchers conduct supercomputer-aided drug repositioning at scale to fight COVID-19

Supercomputers around the world have spun up to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, conducted by a team from the Korean Institute of Science and Technology, the researchers used supercomputer resources to perform high-throughput virtual screening for candidate molecules that could serve as protease inhibitors to debilitate COVID-19. They found 43 drug candidates and narrowed the list to eight candidates after further simulations.

Do you know about COVID-19 research that should be featured on this list? If so, send us an email at [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.