INDUSTRY

The Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC) has announced the upgrade of its high performance computing (HPC) capacity with the acquisition of the IBM Cluster 1350. This new system is projected to be one of the top 50 supercomputers in the world, making OSC among the top 10 academic supercomputing centers. As a leader in research, development and innovation, OSC is dedicated to growing Ohio's economy through its services to higher education, industry, and government. Along with increased HPC capability, OSC's services include access to the nation's most comprehensive statewide broadband network as well as the nationally recognized Blue Collar Computing Initiative and Ralph Regula School of Computational Science. "OSC is developing new tools to increase the innovation and competitiveness of Ohio's research and industrial partners," said Stan Ahalt, OSC Executive Director. "We appreciate the continued recognition and support for OSC by the Governor and Ohio Legislature." The new IBM Cluster 1350 will enhance research and education collaborations on critically important areas such as advanced materials, energy, biosciences, manufacturing, defense, and aerospace applications. The new hardware will also give OSC’s Blue Collar Computing partners the horsepower they need to solve challenging industrial problems that require extensive computation. The acquisition of the IBM Cluster 1350 includes the latest AMD Opteron multi-core technologies and the new IBM cell processors. Ten times as powerful as any of OSC’s current systems, the system offers a peak performance of more than 22 trillion floating point operations per second. OSC’s new supercomputer also includes blade systems based on the Cell Broadband Engine processor. This will allow Ohio researchers and industries to easily use this new hybrid HPC architecture. For more information about obtaining an OSC account to access the new system, visit its Web site.