AUTHOR=Ronchetti Federico , Akishina Valentina , Andreassen Edvard , Bluhme Nora , Dange Gautam , de Cuveland Jan , Erba Giada , Gaur Hari , Hutter Dirk , Kozlov Grigory , Krčál Luboš , La Pointe Sarah , Lehrbach Johannes , Lindenstruth Volker , Nešković Gvozden , Redelbach Andreas , Rohr David , Weiglhofer Felix , Wilhelmi Alexander 

TITLE=Efficient high performance computing with the ALICE event processing nodes GPU-based farm

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Physics

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2025

YEAR=2025

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/physics/articles/10.3389/fphy.2025.1541854

DOI=10.3389/fphy.2025.1541854

ISSN=2296-424X

ABSTRACT=Due to the increase of data volumes expected for the LHC Run 3 and Run 4, the ALICE Collaboration designed and deployed a new, energy efficient, computing model to run Online and Offline O2 data processing within a single software framework. The ALICE O2 Event Processing Nodes (EPN) project performs online data reconstruction using GPUs (Graphic Processing Units) instead of CPUs and applies an efficient, entropy-based, online data compression to cope with Pb–Pb collision data at a 50 kHz hadronic interaction rate. Also, the O2 EPN farm infrastructure features an energy efficient, environmentally friendly, adiabatic cooling system which allows for operational and capital cost savings.