A supercomputer which it is expected to offer insights into many burning scientific questions of the day from climate change, to questions about the evolution of the universe and sub-nuclear particles, was launched today at Edinburgh University.
Corridors of Power: a series of CRAY XT4 cabinets form HECToR's large brain
Photo: P.Tuffy (c)2007-2008 University of Edinburgh
Capable of crunching data four times faster than its predecessor, HECToR (High End Computing Terascale Resources) can perform around 60 Tera Flops ("Tflops") or 60 million million calculations per second.
The supercomputer, the equivalent of 12,000 desktops, will be operated by EPCC (Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre) at the University's Advanced Computing Facility (ACF) on the Edinburgh Technopole estate in Midlothian, at a cost of £113 million over six years. HECToR is made by American company, Cray Inc, and has been paid for by the UK Research Councils.
The University of Edinburgh ran the former British supercomputer, but it was physically located in Manchester. As with the previous supercomputer, users will log in to HECToR through the internet.
EPCC’s director, Professor Arthur Trew, says that applications include simulating disasters and emergency response, long-range meteorological forecasting and climate change and modelling the way the universe develops.