BW Online | September 10, 2003 | A Mac-Style Supercomputer

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University is building a Power Mac G5 cluster that will result in a supercomputer estimated to be one of the top five fastest in the world.

What attracted them was the G5's unique architecture. It uses dual processors to reach processing speeds up to 2 gigahertz. Virginia Tech scientists didn't care whether that was the fastest to date -- it was plenty fast for their purposes. They figured that if they strapped 1,100 G5s together, they could amass enough computing muscle to handle the massive calculations necessary for nanosecond electronics and computational chemistry. In short, they would have a world-class supercomputer - delivering over 10 Teraflops of performance.

And they would have it for chicken feed, relatively speaking. The Mac cluster will cost no more than $5.2 million, which is "quite modest," according to Tech officials. To save more money, the university is recruiting students to help set up 19.25 tons of computers, routers, and other equipment. The servers in the cluster will be connected through 24 high-speed Infiniband switches from Mellanox Technologies. Infiniband, which was developed by a consortium of server and storage companies, provides greater bandwidth than other interconnect technologies on the market, such as Miranet, and can often cost less. The cluster also uses a cooling system from Liebert, a division of Emerson Network Power, as well as Gigabit Ethernet switches from Cisco Systems.

Apple realizes the tremendous public-relations opportunity here and has gone out of its way to help. "We've found Apple very receptive," says Virginia Tech spokeswoman Lynn Nystrom, who adds that Apple is helping to coordinate delivery and assembly among the project's other participating partners -- Cisco (CSCO ), Liebert, and Mellanox. Liebert, a division of Emerson Electric (EMR ), will build the cooling system to keep the supercomputer from overheating, and Mellanox will provide the cards, drivers, and switches that will connect the computers into a network.

The school is racing to assemble it by Oct. 1 -- the deadline for the next contest that will rank the world's top supercomputers.