High-performance Computing (HPC), the Foundation of Smart Cars

High performance computing (abbreviated as HPC), which uses computing clusters to handle data-intensive computing tasks that ordinary workstations cannot complete, including scientific solution calculations, engineering mechanics applications, information data processing, and artificial intelligence. In today's information society, HPC computing capability determines the speed of research and development of enterprises and the ability to serve the public, and is an important symbol to measure the technological level and research and development capabilities of an enterprise and even the entire country.

Since SAIC Technology Center launched the HPC platform infrastructure construction in 2008, HPC resources have been committed to CAE simulation analysis and calculation of structural mechanics, internal and external flow fields, and vehicle thermal management, and have played an important role in the performance research and development simulation of automotive vehicles and parts. An important role to ensure the high-quality development of the project.

With the changes in the positioning of automobiles in the new era, the attributes of automobiles will be transformed from traditional single travel tools to digital and continuously upgraded mobile user assistants. This requires automobile research and development to embrace changes, develop agilely, and shorten the cycle from project approval to production of complete vehicles. Constantly innovate. Therefore, the R&D process has further increased demands on HPC resources and ease of use.

In addition, SAIC’s HPC platform has upgraded the original platform to address the problems of aging hardware resources and slow iterative update of resources. For the first time, through the hybrid cloud architecture, local resources and cloud resources can be used collaboratively under the same scheduling service. It not only integrates the original self-purchased hardware, prolongs the service life of old resources, but also technically realizes the integration of external cloud resources, creating the possibility for rapid expansion and flexible adjustment of resources.

In recent years, the technical center has accumulated more than 10,000 cores of resources through external cloud resources, which are used in disciplines such as structural collision and fluid analysis, effectively ensuring the high-quality and agile development of vehicle research and development. Thanks to the powerful computing power of SAIC Motor, the performance of the 8155 chip on the Roewe RX5 MAX can be perfectly released, so that the smart cockpit can have the best intelligent experience.

At the same time, the traditional HPCHPC computing center operation mode has always been in the form of separation of calculation and pre-processing. Engineers spend a lot of time on uploading and downloading data, resulting in a huge waste of human resources. At present, the platform provides virtual applications of Hyperworks, ADAMS, ABAQUS, CCM+ and other pre- and post-processing software. Users can directly view, modify and resubmit the calculation of the finite element model and results on the HPC side through the virtual interface, thereby optimizing the time for data creep. , builds a simulation-integrated work platform for engineers, and improves the work efficiency of simulation analysis.

Today, HPC has executed more than 1.3 million homework assignments since the system update and switchover. Especially since 2020, the average monthly number of HPC homework assignments has remained at 30,000, showing a gradual upward trend. While satisfying the agile development of the project, it also effectively improves the quality of simulation analysis and effectively guarantees the quality of project development.

The car of the future will not only be continuously and rapidly updated in terms of hardware, but will also be a mobile computer with four wheels. Therefore, while continuously meeting the development needs of rapid iterative updates for vehicle hardware development, the HPC platform is also actively looking for new integration points for the future development direction, including intelligent driving scenario solutions, AI algorithm training, etc., and will continue to support these research and development Need to provide solid computing power services.

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