A UK computing grid will expand to 77,000 processing cores and 54 petabytes of storage by 2020 to handle the flood of data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). This infrastructure is needed because the LHC’s particle collisions produce enormous datasets—far too large for any single institution to process. Without a distributed computing network, physicists would be unable to analyse the data needed to test fundamental theories of matter and energy. The GridPP Collaboration operates this service as a shared, high-throughput computational resource, linking UK universities and labs with international partners. If the project succeeds, it will sustain the UK’s ability to compete globally in particle physics, enabling discoveries about the building blocks of the universe. This is fundamental science with no immediate practical application. However, past investments in large-scale distributed computing have driven innovations in data handling, cloud infrastructure, and network protocols that now underpin everyday services—from weather forecasting to streaming video. The same pattern may repeat here, though the primary goal remains curiosity-driven: understanding what the universe is made of.
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This proposal, submitted in response to the 2018 invitation from STFC, aims to provide and operate a computing Grid for the exploitation of LHC data in the UK. The success of the current GridPP Collaboration will be built upon, and the UK's response to production of LHC data in the period April 2020 to March 2024 will be to ensure that there is a sustainable infrastructure providing "Distributed Computing for Particle Physics" We propose to operate a distributed high throughput computational service as the main mechanism for delivering very large-scale computational resources to the UK particle physics community. This foundation will underpin the success and increase the discovery potential of UK physicists. We will operate a production-quality service, delivering robustness, scale and functionality. The proposal is fully integrated with international projects and we must exploit the opportunity to capitalise on the UK leadership already established in several areas. The Particle Physics distributed computing service will increasingly be integrated with national and international initiatives. The project will be managed across various domains and will deliver the UK's commitment to the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG) and ensure that worldwide activities directly benefit the UK. By 2020, the UK Grid infrastructure will have expanded in size to 77,000 cores, with more than 54 PetaBytes of storage. This will enable the UK to exploit, in an internationally competitive way, the unique physics potential of the LHC.
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