The warehouse-sized supercomputer under construction here at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign comes with a price tag of nearly half a billion dollars, making it one of the most expensive supercomputers ever devoted to academic research. And yet, when engineers turn on the machine this year, it very likely won't be the fastest computer in the world.
And its designers don't care.
"We're not looking to be on the Top 500 list," says Thom Dunning, who leads the computer's development as head of the university's National Center for Supercomputing Applications. Rather than hit a peak sprint speed measured by the Top 500, the most widely used supercomputer ranking, he wants to build a distance runner, capable, for example, of powering through intricate simulations of a tornado that can predict where a storm might strike.
To read the full, original article click on this link: In University Supercomputing, the Fastest May No Longer Be the Best - Technology - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Author: Jeffrey R. Young
