14 DAY TRIAL // The European supercomputer top is about to change as of today with the advent of the new "abacus" called Hector. Located back in UK, Hector is the fastest supercomputer in the kingdom, and, at the same time, one of the most powerful computing clusters on the old continent. It sums up the power of around 12,000 desktop PCs and can perform 63 million calculations each second.
Hector is not a name, but an acronym. It stands for High-End Computing Terascale Resource, a name given by its manufacturer - US supercomputer expert, Cray. Hector is accommodated in 60 normal cabinets in the University of Edinburgh's advanced computing center. The machine is the result of several years of continuous development and costs 113 million pounds. The machine has officially been unveiled by Chancellor Alistair Darling.
The supercomputer will mainly be used by researchers in order to answer some of the biggest questions science has raised over time. The university scientists will be able to examine ocean currents, study microelectronics or develop new technologies. Supercomputers are usually called in to solve the so-called "challenges", operations that take a pseudo-infinite time to reach completion (such as foreseeing the next position of a molecule in a gas suspension).
"Hector will enable us to do research that we simply could not do in any other way," said Jane Nicholson, a researcher at the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the public body that acts as the project's managing agent. "We want to push forward the boundaries of knowledge."
Some other possible applications of supercomputing will include research into superconductors, combustion engines and new materials. Hector will be available to any scientist in the university, no matter whether they are space researchers or atomic physicists.
Although it is a powerful computer cluster, Hector is just a kid as compared to the supercomputer titans produced by IBM, such as the "notorious" Blue Gene/L. The military supercomputer is accommodated in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory facility in California and is especially used for performing nuclear weapons simulations.