By Michael Kennedy
Fast enough to make 25 trillion calculations a second, and tasked with finding a cure to cancer, the new cluster computing system at the Miller I.T. Center has plenty of high expectations.
The $2.1 million Cardinal Research Cluster supercomputer has been running since Jan. 29, and is expected to be full operational next month.
Its first application was used to search for more efficient materials for solar panel construction, according to the head of the project, Dr. Charam Jayanthi, a University Physics Scholar.
But there will be a variety applications for the supercomputer. It is currently the most powerful academic computer infrastructure in Kentucky, and when it is fully operational will be one of the 500 fastest computers in the world. It is about 1,100 times faster than an average desktop computer.
“It’s a university wide resource. It will be used for research for every department across campus.” Harrison Simrall, a research-computing consultant said.
A cluster computer system links together many processors to form one task. The university has been using a similar system with thousands of school computers around Kentucky. When K-12 computers are not in use, the university has used their excess processing power for research, and University of Louisville Provost Shirley Willihnganz credits that system with the development of new drugs. The CRC will perform similar tasks; with a greater capacity and more quickly.
“These drugs that will be developed on this machine, they don’t just cure cancer; they’re not toxic to people,” Priscilla Hancock, Vice President of Information Technology said.
Priscilla Hancock, Vice President of Information Technology said the machine will be used in bioinformatics, to search through thousands of medical records, looking for patterns undetectable to humans.
Dr. Manny Martinez, Vice President for Research, said he expects the machine will work closely with the forthcoming Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research and Environmental Stewardship to work toward alternative energy development.
The university paid for $600,000 of the cost by leasing frequencies of the wireless spectrum it no longer uses. The additional $1.5 million came from federal funds.
The supercomputer has brought smiles to researchers and faculty across campus. Kentucky law requires that U of L become a “premier metropolitan research university,” and these two projects certainly help its case.
“[CRC] will allow us to change lives in the classroom, by bringing more academic excellence; new ideas to our young people to help open more minds,” said Willihnganz. “It will help us do more to make this a better world to live in.”
