Formula 1 moved its on-premises HPC environment to high-performance computing (HPC) platform on AWS using Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) instances and AWS ParallelCluster. Formula 1 chose to use a combination of Amazon EC2 C5n instances and the new Arm-based AWS Graviton2 C6gn instances to gain maximum pricing and performance flexibility. In addition to reducing its simulation time from days to hours, Formula 1 lowered the cost of running these workloads by 30% using the AWS Graviton2-powered instances.
Symonds further explained, ‘The recent release of AWS Graviton2 has allowed us to optimise other jobs and has achieved a 30% cost saving, and I see that going further. I’m sure we can move towards 40% cost savings compared to our old methods of doing things. By working with AWS, we have access to a huge environment – not just a physical environment of compute power, but some great people. People who push us just as much as we push them.’
The 2022 car development project delivered performance equivalent to a supercomputer costing millions of dollars, but at a fraction of the cost. With the insights gained from these simulations, Formula 1 has created a car design with only 18% downforce loss at 10m car distance compared to 46% of the previous generation. This should make for close wheel-to-wheel action on the track in 2022 and beyond.