Digital transformation of droplet/aerosol infection risk assessment realized on Fugaku for the fight against COVID-19

The fastest supercomputer in 2020, Fugaku, has not only achieved digital transformation of epidemiology in allowing end-to-end, detailed quantitative modeling of COVID-19 transmissions for the first time but also transformed the behavior of the entire Japanese public through its detailed analysis of transmission risks in multitudes of societal situations entailing heavy risks. A novel aerosol simulation methodology was synthesized out of a combination of a new CFD methods meeting industrial demands in the solver, CUBE (Jansson et al., 2019), which not only allowed the simulations to scale massively with high resolution required for micrometer virus-containing aerosol particles but also enabled extremely rapid time-to-solution due to its ability to generate the digital twins representing multitudes of societal situations in a matter of minutes, attaining true overall application high performance; such simulations have been running for the past 1.5 degrees years on Fugaku, cumulatively consuming top supercomputer-class resources and the communicated by the media as well as becoming the basis for official public policies.

Automated summary

The Fugaku supercomputer has revolutionized epidemiology and changed the behavior of the Japanese public by providing detailed analysis of COVID-19 transmission risks. Its innovative aerosol simulation method, utilizing a new CFD solver, allows for high-resolution simulations and rapid generation of digital twins representing various societal situations.