March 3, 2008

UK’s fastest computer

It’s called High End Computing Terascale Resource (HECTOR) and it is the most advanced computer in the UK, capable of handling around sixty three trillion calculations per second. This is astonishingly the equivalent of twelve thousand desk top PC’s all working together at one time, or to put it another way, it is like every person on the planet carrying out around ten thousand calculations per second.

It cost a massive one hundred and thirteen million pounds and took over six years to build at the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC) of the Edinburgh Advanced Computer Facility.

Some of the work that is going to be carried out on the new machine is to do with climate change, the spread of epidemic diseases and the development of new medicines. The financing came from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council on behalf of U.K. Research Councils and the Department of Innovation, Universities, and Skills.

Source [News]