Blue Gene by the Red Sea

IBM is building a supercomputer for the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. The supercomputer—dubbed Shaheen, Arabic for peregrine falcon—is slated to start up in stages at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York, where it will be used for research and training before going online next summer at KAUST’s Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, campus.

The 222-teraflop supercomputer is to be a copy of today’s sixth most powerful computer, the Blue Gene/P system in Jülich, Germany. Neither KAUST nor IBM will reveal the cost, but other powerful supercomputers have run tens of millions of dollars.

The new supercomputer will be available for research in the university’s four thrust areas: Earth and environmental sciences and engineering, life sciences and engineering, math and computer sciences, and physical and chemical sciences and engineering. People “will line up very quickly” to use the supercomputer, predicts Majid AlGhaslan, chief information officer for the fledgling KAUST (see Physics Today, August 2007, page 33 ). “This will be a tool to attract the best research minds out there, and it’s meant for academic research.” IBM is helping KAUST recruit faculty to run and use the supercomputer.