By Andrew Webb
Journal Staff Writer
No, there are no banks of flashing lights, no reel-to-reel tape drive, and no ticker tape.
But the state's new $11 million supercomputer— unveiled Monday by Gov. Bill Richardson and local government and business officials— still has the aura of serious horsepower.
The computer— 14,336 liquid-cooled Intel processor cores capable of 172 trillion calculations per second— is set to be the centerpiece of the New Mexico Computing Applications Center, accessed through a statewide network of "gateways" on college campuses and other locations. It has been christened "Encanto," Spanish for Enchanted.
The system is intended for use by business, government and schools. Officials say it will be used to help clients engineer new products, model environmental patterns or solve problems like energy shortfalls.
"As news of our supercomputer spreads, more and more businesses and educational institutions will want to work with the state," Richardson said.
The supercomputer is located in an unused factory space at Intel Corp.'s Rio Rancho plant, under an agreement with the machine's builder, Sunnyvale, Calif.-based SGI. SGI technicians plan to wrap up performance testing on the machine by the end of this month.
It was paid for with $14 million in capital outlay money passed during the 2007 Legislature. Backers are seeking an additional $5.8 million during the 2008 session to help create a permanent office and begin building the college gateways.
The computer was recently named the third-fastest supercomputer in the world and is the fastest not owned by the federal government.
Tom Bowles, a former chief science officer at Los Alamos National Laboratories who is on loan as a science adviser to Richardson, said that, besides the main location in Rio Rancho, three separate chunks of the computer will be housed at the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University and New Mexico Tech.
"This will roughly double or more the computer power at each of those universities," he said.
AED 
...go to bookmarks
E-mail Story
Print Friendly
Send E-mail
Reprint story
