New research chances from supercomputing

A University of Otago investment in cutting-edge IBM supercomputing will open new opportunities for its researchers, deputy vice-chancellor, research and enterprise, Prof Richard Blaikie says.

Otago University and the University of Auckland co-funded the purchase of the IBM system, which is based at Auckland's Centre for eResearch and forms part of a new collaboration called the New Zealand eScience Infrastructure (NeSI).

The investment adds about 3000 processing cores - equivalent to about 750 times the number of cores in a modern laptop computer - to the centre's supercomputing capacity.

Prof Blaikie said while the cores were the same as those found in everyday computers, getting them working together was what made the system special.

''Rather than having an orchestra of 100 musicians each doing their own thing and not being that particularly well co-ordinated, it's really orchestrating them so that they are all working in concert.''

Having access to the supercomputing power, which was a step up from what the university previously could offer, would open new opportunities for its researchers, he said.

It also put the university in a ''strong position'' to co-operate with other institutions with access to superior or complementary supercomputers.

''You have got to be in the game to be participating in some of the larger international programmes in these areas.''

Research areas at Otago where the new investment would be helpful included looking into the prospects of tidal energy, as the new system could model large marine environments; research into ''gravitational cosmology'' through the modelling of clouds of stars and galactic entities; and the discovery of new drugs.

Prof Blaikie said the university had spent a ''significant amount'' of money on the project, but that the exact figure was ''commercially sensitive''.

- vaughan.elder@odt.co.nz