Backgrounder: Leading Supercomputer Launched at UVic
à UVic's Minerva high performance computing facility uses an eight-node IBM SP (Nighthawk 2) with 128 processors and one terabyte of disk space.
à The facility is housed in the university's computing centre and researchers access it from work stations around campus.
à Computers of this capacity take on the "grand challenges" of science and technology. UVic will apply the computer to research into climate modeling, communications networks, parallel computing, electromagnetics, bio-engineering, fluid dynamics, genetics, particle physics and astronomy.
à At its current configuration, the UVic supercomputer exceeds the working power of more than 200 high-end desktop computers.
à The University of Mannheim, Germany and the University of Tennessee maintain an independent list of the "Top 500" commercially available supercomputers world-wide (www.top500.org). The yardstick used for comparing computers (the LINPACK) reflects a computer's ability to solve a dense system of linear equations. The UVic facility would rank among the world's top 150 in the current list.
à UVic research attracts more than $30 million in external funding each year.
à The Canada Foundation for Innovation, an independent, not-for-profit corporation, was established in 1997 by the federal government to invest in university, college and hospital research infrastructure in partnership with provincial governments, research institutions and the private sector.
à Created in 1998, the $217-million B.C. Knowledge Development Fund is meant to improve the province's research infrastructure over an eight-year period. The fund is designed to help acquire research equipment and construct facilities. By 2006, the fund is expected to lever $542 million in research investments at B.C.'s public post-secondary institutions.
IBM provided an earlier grant to UVic of $840,000, through its Shared University Research program, for high speed data distribution via the Internet and for UVic's climate modeling research.