 | Yale Engineering Dean Paul A. Fleury (left) and Tilak Agerwala of IBM cut the ribbon to the new Yale-IBM computer center. |
A ribbon-cutting ceremony for a collaborative Yale-IBM Parallel Computing Facility was held on April 27 in Becton Engineering and Applied Science Center.
The ceremony represented the culmination of conversations that began in October of 2001 between IBM and Yale Engineering on how to foster an enhanced research relationship between the two institutions. IBM contributed equipment to Yale under its Shared University Research grant program, and this dedication marked the official opening of the computing facility.
The powerful cluster of interconnected computing systems provides Yale a cost-effective platform for high performance computing. Application of this computing cluster may lead to future experiments with IBM's Blue Gene technology, the basis for the world's most powerful supercomputer.
"This collaboration and shared resource gives us at Yale a real step up in our on-site computer capability. It will have a tremendous impact for programs in engineering and physics," said Paul A. Fleury, dean of Yale Engineering, in his opening remarks.
"Computational sciences and cost-effective supercomputing have become fundamental to innovation and discovery in science, engineering and business," said Tilak Agerwala, vice president of Systems at IBM Research. "Yale is following the right paradigm with this IBM cluster."
Mitchell D. Smooke, the Strathcona Professor of Mechanical Engineering, said that one project the researchers will focus on involves modeling improvements for combustion in automobiles -- noting that people are likely to be driving cars using derivative hydrocarbon fuel for the next 50 to 100 years in spite of new innovations. Modeling with high-performance computing of the type installed in the Yale-IBM facility could lead to significant reductions in emissions and improvements in fuel economy, he said.
Ramamurti Shankar, chair of the Department of Physics and the John Randolph Huffman Professor of Physics, said his colleagues will use the system to test models of the underlying "theory of everything," also known as "string theory," which at the moment has no direct evidence.
"Having this very powerful computer will allow us to use the basic rules of physics that we know, but cannot test directly, to test the theories," he said.
-- By Janet Rettig Emanuel
T H I S
Yale-IBM computer facility formally dedicated
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