ExaFEL - exascale computing for SFX data processing - Derek Mendez

High repetition rate serial crystallography is on the horizon. Recently, the European XFEL produced and published a 3.5 kHz SFX dataset (19 million images in 1.5 hours) in order to spur development in high rep-rate diffraction data processing [1]. Meanwhile at SLAC, the next-generation MHz Linac Coherent Light Source instrument (LCLS-II) is in commissioning, with a high-energy (up to ~13 keV) upgrade in the works [2]. Facilities such as these, capable of generating vast amounts of data, give rise to global developments in supercomputing. Governmental bodies, including the US, EU, Japan, and China, are promising new exascale computers (7-10 times faster than the current state of the art) [3]. We will discuss these new high-rep-rate X-ray sources, the leveraging of cutting-edge supercomputing, and what all this means from a serial crystallographer’s point of view.
[1] Kirkwood, H. J. et al (2022). A multi-million image Serial Femtosecond Crystallography dataset collected at the European XFEL. Scientific Data 2022 9:1, 9(1), 1-7. doi.org/10.103...
[2] Raubenheimer, T. O. (2018). The LCLS-II-HE, A High Energy Upgrade of the LCLS-II. FLS 2018 - Proceedings of the 60th ICFA Advanced Beam Dynamics Workshop on Future Light Sources, 6-11. doi.org/10.184...
[3] Reed, D., Gannon, D., & Dongarra, J. (2022). Reinventing High Performance Computing: Challenges and Opportunities. doi.org/10.485...