Mac Supercomputer Could Bring Apple Credibility In Servers

When Virginia Tech created the world's third-fastest supercomputer last year by stringing together 1,100 Apple Computer Inc. Macintoshes, no one seemed more stunned than Apple itself.

Sure, the firm had long touted the newest G5 models as fast. But that referred to their speedy film editing and CD burning, not the massive number crunching needed to sequence genomes or model weather patterns. "It shocked a lot of people," said Virginia Tech spokeswoman Lynn Nystrom.

Virginia Tech, which used Apple's larger desktop G5s, will be one of the servers' first customers. Even before its supercomputer is ready for business, the school is upgrading it to the new G5 Xserves to save space and cut costs. (Apple is helping the school pay for the move.)

At the same time, Apple is launching an early version of its Xgrid software, which makes it easier to pool the computing power of many machines - a concept called clustering. Virginia Tech uses its own in-house software to do the clustering, but the idea is the same.