Saudi Arabia Begins To Realize Supercomputer Ambitions 191
An anonymous reader writes "Saudi Arabia is building a supercomputer that could rank among the 10 most powerful systems in the world. And the country isn't stopping there. It has plans to turn this marquee system for the Middle East into a petascale system in two years, and, beyond that, an exascale system."
What does it run? (Score:4, Informative)
TFA does not name the O/S it runs, though a linked article from TFA says the Iranian's supercomputer runs Linux.
Inquiring minds want to know, I think.
Re:Simulating... (Score:5, Informative)
What would Muslims need a supercomputer to simulate [bbc.co.uk]?
I would think it would be more for the oil industry.
http://www.epcc.ed.ac.uk/news/press-releases/two-award-nominations-for-scottish-supercomputer
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,2090687,00.htm
http://www.hpcwire.com/industry/oilandgas/Worlds_10th_Fastest_Supercomputer_Helps_Find_Oil_and_Gas.html
Re:What does it run? (Score:3, Informative)
I googled Blue Gene/P after posting that. It's from IBM, it's a supercomputer. Duh. What else would it be running?
The article quotes on of the leads as saying that they have no legacy restrictions, so they are probably going to go with something very fast and very state of the art.
From http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/21791.wss [ibm.com]
The Blue Gene supercomputer operating system is based on the open-source Linux operating system. Applications are written in common languages such as Fortran, C and C++ using standards-based MPI communications protocols. The Blue Gene/P supercomputer is compatible with the diverse applications currently running on the Blue Gene/L supercomputer, including leading research in physics, chemistry, biology, aerospace, astrophysics, genetics, materials science, cosmology and seismology.
Re:Culture (Score:2, Informative)
WTF? Did you actually think that was worth posting?
I appreciate the diversity of thought and opinion here at Slashdot, and I encourage people of all stripes to post here. But that post was just retarded.
At least it does something for secular education (Score:5, Informative)
In some ways, it's encouraging. Until recently, 90% of the advanced degrees awarded in Saudi universities are in "religious studies". Most useful work is done by foreigners, and the country has a 25-30% youth unemployment rate. About four years ago, King Abdullah decided to throw money at the problem. [zawya.com] KAUST is part of this. The university is still being built and has no students yet; opening is scheduled for September 2009. It's a graduate school only, and is intended to have about 275 faculty members. Faculty will not be tenured; they'll be contract employees.
Presumably somebody thought that having a big supercomputer would help with recruiting or image. There are no research programs underway yet to use it. The logical application for that would be seismic processing for oil exploration, a classic supercomputer application, but that's moving to GPUs.
Re:from TFA (Score:3, Informative)
You forgot to mention the really crucial point: there are no women.
Re:from TFA (Score:3, Informative)
Oops, I think I wasn't clear. I meant the Saudi University. In Egypt, there are women.
Re:At least it does something for secular educatio (Score:3, Informative)
Working in the above mentioned place.. (Score:5, Informative)
Posting Anonymously for obvious reasons.
Actually this is quite a late realization. They have known that for a fact for the past few years but cared less to get into a competition. The computers are used for Oil reservoir simulation (predicting fluid flow and oil in place, production/injection rates over time), and their simulator is one of the best in the industry besides Schlumberger's "Eclipse", which it's based on scientifically, and is considered to be an industry standard.
They dont only stop there, also "Visualization Clusters" perform parallel graphics rendering (thats what I do actually) due to the enormous amounts of data needed to be displayed on multiple screens. I also know for a fact that there is not a single country in the middle east besides KSA that has such technology (Do not know about Iran, but thats not ME anyway, or is it?)
There are other applications running on SEVERAL clusters.
KAUST which is mentioned in the article is actually overlooked by the national oil company Saudi Aramco (which has all the clusters I am talking about)
P.S. I am not Saudi, but I do have the pleasure to be working with them on this technology, and I am telling you they have some of the best minds on the planet.