Virginia Tech’s scientists led by 30-year-old Indian American Assistant Professor Dr Srinidhi Varadarajan have amazed the computing industry by putting together the world’s third-fastest supercomputer in a record time of three months, and at record low cost of $5.2 million, using off-the-shelf components. Most other machines of its class cost upward of $40 million and take years to assemble. Japan’s Earth Simulator, the number one supercomputer, is said to have cost at least $350 million. The tab was kept low by Varadarajan and his team by using hundreds of student volunteers, who were paid only in soda and pizza for assembling the cluster in less than a month. They ate between 600 and 700 pizzas, Dr Varadarajan, who teaches Computer Science, estimates. ‘‘This is arguably the cheapest supercomputer and is definitely the most powerful home-built supercomputer,’’ adds its architect. Dean of Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering Prof Hassan Aref calls it ‘‘a groundbreaking project’’ and says the team behind it ‘‘pulled off miracles, raising glass ceilings and opening locked doors’’. The supercomputer made from 1,100 dual-processor power Mac G5s, nicknamed by some as ‘Big Mac’, ranks third among the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers, many of which handle with ease one trillion calculations per second. The Top 500 is twice-a-year listing started in 1993 to provide a ‘‘who’s who’’ of hot computers, spotting and tracking trends in high-performance computing. The ranking by the Top 500 project will be officially announced later this month at the supercomputing conference in Phoenix. Theoretically, Big Mac could handle a potential 17 teraflops, or 17 trillion operations per second. That still falls short of the No. 1 machine, Japan’s Earth Simulator, whose 5,000-plus processors allow it do 35.8 teraflops, with the potential of another five teraflops. This is followed by two other supercomputers, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, both dedicated to weapons design and running at between 7 and 9 teraflops, according to a widely-accepted ratings list maintained by Big Mac. ‘‘The newly completed supercomputer operates at 9.55 trillion operations a second, or 9.55 teraflops,’’ says Varadarajan, but he says it can go higher. System optimisation is nearly finished, but ‘‘we still have a few more tricks,’’ he says. ‘‘We’re hoping for a 10 per cent boost, hopefully shortly.’’ According to Varadarajan, ‘‘It all started when the school wrote for a grant to build a new machine to replace a 200-node system which was becoming too small for its computing needs. When the proposal was being finalised, Apple came out with its new 64-bit G-5 Mac which the team found to its liking.’’ The new Dean of Virginia Tech gave permission to build the supercomputer on his first day on the job. Varadarajan ordered the G5s three days after Apple Computer announced them, and key software was written in ‘‘a matter of weeks’’. ‘‘Our goal is to build a world-class supercomputer to enable big science and engineering research at a price well below any comparable centre,’’ says Vardarajan. ‘‘We expect this facility to be a powerful model for universities around the world.’’ (PTI)
