Linux supercomputer rocks down under

The University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, has invested $3.25m (£2m) in a Linux-based SGI supercomputer system to research earth sciences and earthquake mechanisms.

The Linux system, dubbed Australian Computational Earth Systems Simulator (ACcESS), has been funded by the Queensland state government. It is based around an SGI Altix 3000 supercomputer, powered by 208 Intel Itanium 2 processors.

Built on SGI's NUMAflex non uniform memory access scalable architecture, it boasts a hefty 208GB of main memory and also uses the new Silicon Graphics Onyx4 UltimateVision graphics system.

The remit of ACcESS is to carry out large simulations and develop methodologies to increase crucial knowledge of earthquakes and help forecast earth movements. When installed, it will be one of the most powerful computational machines available in Australia.

Peter Mora, director of the Earth Systems Science Computational Center at the University of Queensland, said: "We will be able to study the dynamics of fault systems in the earth's crust in a way never before possible, which could lead to the scientific underpinning needed to forecast earthquakes.

"[It] provides an immense opportunity to achieve scientific breakthroughs and innovations in the earth sciences and related IT areas."