Purdue computer ranks third among universities

Supercomputer allows for more useful research

By Patricia Nikolaros
Staff Writer

Purdue engineers, scientists and graduate students can understand the effects of turbulence on an aircraft, can model the structures of molecules and viruses, can design more effective drugs and study the human genome or global climate changes thanks to Purdue's supercomputer.

This IBM SP2 supercomputer ranks the third most powerful in U.S. academic institutions.

The two schools that had higher rankings and similar systems are the University of North Carolina and the University of Minnesota, according to the Top500 supercomputer list.

Purdue is one of four Big Ten Universities on the list. The other Big Ten schools are Minnesota, which ranked 55th overall, Indiana University, which ranked 373rd, and Pennsylvania State University, 489th.

Computer Scientists at the University of Tennessee and the University of Mannheim, Germany, created the TOP500 supercomputer list, which can be found on the web at http://www.top500.org.

Before the upgrade in July that got Purdue the supercomputer, students and researchers had to use the computer at the University of Illinois, said Steven Frankel, an associate professor of mechanical engineering.

"It will make us more efficient in our research and give our students good experience in high performance computing," said Frankel.

This supercomputer called an IBM RS/6000 SP was rated 12th most powerful among systems at academic institutions. However when the machine's upgrade was announced in June, it would have rated 50th most powerful in the Top500 list at that time. In the new list that came out in November, it dropped to 72nd.

John Steele, the director for research computing said, "This is a very dynamic field and it changes very quickly."

This newly upgraded supercomputer is 15 times as powerful as the university's previous system. It contains 272 parallel processors with a total memory of 288 gigabytes, which is 4,000 times more memory than typical personal computers.

Since the upgrade, the supercomputer has been used more heavily by researchers and students in Chemistry, Biological Science, Aeronautics and Astronautics, said Bill Whitson, the director of the Computing Center Research.

"The supercomputer is a world-class computing system which should attract more faculty and students," said Whitson.

Steele said, "This supercomputer indicates that we are serious about providing resources for researchers here at Purdue."

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Purdue computer ranks third among universities

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