University of Tokyo Computer Center

University of Tokyo Computer Center
Name	University of Tokyo Computer Center
Native name	東京大学情報基盤センター
Established	1960s
Location	Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan
Type	Research infrastructure
Parent organization	University of Tokyo

University of Tokyo Computer Center is a central computing facility serving the University of Tokyo's campuses and research institutes. The center provides high-performance computing, data storage, networking, and software services to support projects across disciplines associated with National Institute of Informatics, RIKEN, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and international partners such as CERN and MIT. It plays a role in national initiatives linked to MEXT (Japan), RIKEN Center for Computational Science, and collaborations with institutions like Osaka University and Kyoto University.

History

The center traces origins to early computing activity at the University of Tokyo during the postwar period, alongside developments at Hitachi, NEC, and Fujitsu supplying mainframes. During the 1970s and 1980s the center expanded in parallel with projects at Tsukuba Science City, Keio University computing efforts, and the rise of networks such as National Institute of Informatics's SINET and the JANET-era exchanges. In the 1990s the center integrated UNIX clusters influenced by architectures from Sun Microsystems, IBM's POWER systems, and collaborations echoing research at Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University, and University of California, Berkeley. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s engagement continued with Google research groups, the European Grid Infrastructure, and regional supercomputing initiatives like Fugaku at RIKEN, transforming center services to support big data projects tied to Japan Science and Technology Agency and cross-border consortia with ETH Zurich and Imperial College London.

Facilities and Infrastructure

The center maintains data centers on the Hongo Campus and satellite facilities near Komaba and Kashiwa, featuring redundant power systems modeled after standards from ISO practices used by Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services. Hardware inventories have included systems from Fujitsu, NEC, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and cluster nodes leveraging processors from Intel, AMD, and accelerators by NVIDIA. Networking infrastructure connects to national backbones such as SINET and international exchange points like Japan Internet Exchange and links with Pacific Wave and APAN. Cooling and physical security draw on designs used by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory. The center's storage architecture supports object storage and parallel file systems inspired by deployments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and CERN Data Centre.

Research and Services

Services include high-performance computing (HPC), cloud computing, data archiving, and computational support for research in collaboration with entities like Department of Physics, University of Tokyo, Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, Earthquake Research Institute, and the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research. Research areas supported span computational chemistry associated with RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, machine learning collaborations linked to DeepMind-style projects, bioinformatics tied to National Center for Global Health and Medicine, and climate modeling comparable to work at Met Office and NOAA. The center provides software stacks including MPI ecosystems used in work with Los Alamos National Laboratory and performance optimization practices from Princeton University and University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.

Education and Training

The center runs training programs for students and staff connected to the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, University of Tokyo, seminars with faculty from Department of Computer Science, University of Tokyo, workshops involving speakers from MIT, Stanford University, ETH Zurich, and industry partners such as Fujitsu and NEC. Curriculum support includes courses used by affiliates at The University of Tokyo Hospital and collaborative tutorials with National Institute for Materials Science and Toyota Central R&D Labs. Outreach programs mirror initiatives seen at ACM conferences and summer schools similar to those organized by IEEE and SIAM.

Governance and Funding

Governance involves university administration, faculty committees from departments across the University of Tokyo, and advisory input from national stakeholders like MEXT (Japan) and funding bodies such as Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and Japan Science and Technology Agency. Project funding has come from competitive grants shared with partners like RIKEN, corporate sponsorships from Fujitsu, NEC, Hitachi, and cooperative contracts with agencies including Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Japan). Policy alignment references guidelines similar to those produced by NIST and practices exchanged with European Commission research programs.

Collaborations and Outreach

The center collaborates with domestic universities including Kyoto University, Osaka University, Tohoku University, and international institutions such as University of Cambridge, Harvard University, Princeton University, ETH Zurich, National University of Singapore, and Tsinghua University. It participates in consortia with GridPP, European Grid Infrastructure, and regional networks like APAN and PEERING. Outreach includes hosting conferences and workshops comparable to Supercomputing Conference and events involving societies like IPSJ and JSPS. Community engagement extends to industry days with Toyota Motor Corporation, Sony Corporation, Panasonic, and startups incubated alongside JST ACCEL initiatives.

Category:University of Tokyo