Case Study: U.S. National Science Foundation National Center advances Nobel Prize-winning gravitational wave research with SURF Grid

Nobel Prize-winning research into gravitational waves using the Grid

The U.S. National Science Foundation National Center, which funds the LIGO project, required immense computing power to process the data from its detectors for groundbreaking gravitational wave research. The LIGO-Virgo collaboration turned to SURF to utilize its high-performance Grid computing service to handle this massive computational challenge.

SURF provided its Grid facility, a key part of the Dutch National e-Infrastructure, to process the complex data. The measurable impact was substantial, with the collaboration performing 12.5 million hours of computational work on SURF's infrastructure in 2017 alone. This support was integral to the Nobel Prize-winning research that successfully detected gravitational waves.

U.S. National Science Foundation National Center