Abstract
In July 1996, as part of the Global Change Prediction Plan, the promotion of research & development for the Earth Simulator has been reported to the Science Technology Agency, based on the report titled "For Realization of the Global Change Prediction" made by the Aero-Electronics Technology Committee.
Description of Earth Simulator
In April 1997, the budget for the development of the Earth Simulator was authorized to be allocated to National Space Development Agency of Japan (NASDA) and Power Reactor and Nuclear Fuel Development Corporation (PNC). The Earth Simulator Research and Development Center was established, with Dr. Miyoshi assigned for the director of the center. The project had begun.
Discussions were made regarding the Earth Simulator Project, at the meeting on the Earth Simulator under the Computer Science Technology Promotion Council (Chairman: Prof. Taro Matsuno of Hokkaido Univ.), which was held 6 times from March to July in 1997. With a report on "Promotion of Earth Simulator Project", specific proposals were put forward to Science and Technology Agency.
The conceptual system design of the Earth Simulator proposed by NEC Corporation was selected by bidding.
Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) had joined the project for PNC.
Under the Computer Science Technology Promotion Council, the Earth Simulator Advisory Committee was instituted with 7 members with profound knowledge in the area (Chairman: Prof. Yoshio Oyanagi of Tokyo Univ.). From June to July in 1998, five meetings were held on the basic design. As a result, in 24th of August it was confirmed with "The Evaluation Report for the basic design of the Earth Simulator".
In February 1999, JAMSTEC joined in the Earth Simulator development project and decided to build the Earth Simulator facility in Kanazawa ward in Yokohama, where it had been the industrial experiment station of Kanagawa prefecture. Manufacturing the Earth Simulator had begun in March 2000, under NASDA, JEARI, and JAMSTEC. After completion, the entire operation and management of the Earth Simulator was decided to be solely charged by JAMSTEC.
At the end of February in 2002, all 640 processor nodes (PN's) started its operation for check up. The Earth Simulator Research and Development Center verified and gained the sustained performance by AFES (an Atmospheric general circulation model for ES), recording 7.2Tflops with 160 PN's, more than 1.44 times faster than the target performance, 5Tflops. The Earth Simulator Center (ESC) with Director-General Dr. Tetsuya Sato has begun the actual operation in March, 2002.
