Your Own Supercomputer With Super Cool Tech

There are areas where we need small computing machines that can work collectively like a supercomputer.

- Ashwini Kumar Sinha

Let us see here how it can be done.

Most supercomputers have interconnected CPUs with a master node CPU that divides a large computing task into smaller tasks. These smaller tasks are assigned to the interconnected CPUs, which work together to finish the task in much lesser time.

So let us design our own supercomputer, which would be a basic system where you can connect as many nodes as you want to fulfill your computation and processing need. We shall use single-board computers and connect them to each other and make one of them the master node. The master node would distribute the tasks and control all the other computers.

The components required for this project are listed under the Bill of Material table. The author's prototype is shown in Fig. 1.

Each node of the cluster for our supercomputer would need the components mentioned under the Bill of Material. To make a cluster supercomputer of 100 RPI, you would need the 100 sets of the above.

Harware designing

You can design either a simple rack based system or design a block of each node and connect the blocks to make a large cluster for personal use. Let us see how you can make a block-based cluster supercomputer, where each block has two CPUs with their own separate pre-configured power management and cooling systems. This design gives you the flexibility to add as many individual cluster blocks as required. You can achieve even one terabyte of computing power by adding enough of these single-node blocks.

Let us design the single block casing that can hold two RPi single-board computers and the cylindrical water cooling reservoir. In the case design keep two cuts on front side to expose the USB and Ethernet ports of RPi. Keep two holes at the bottom to pass the wires and connectors of power supply (see Fig. 2). Also make some vent holes for air circulation to keep the system cool.