By Steve Fisher, Editor In Chief -- Caltech’s Thomas Sterling, often referred to as the “father” of Beowulf clusters, recently joined the board of directors of a relatively obscure financial firm called JJX Capital. JJX plans to build a massive AMD Athlon processor-based cluster to help it try and predict the future direction of the financial markets before its competition can. The company has labeled the machine “the largest commercial supercomputer in the world for securities trading using AMD Athlon microprocessors.” Supercomputing Online interviewed Sterling this week to learn more.