10 Jun 2012

Researchers flock to supercomputer

2:07 pm on 10 June 2012

The group behind a new network of supercomputers says it has been inundated with requests to use its system but still has plenty of capacity.

New Zealand eScience Infrastructure (NeSI) was launched last year and has received $48 million in funding from the Government and research institutes.

Spokesperson Tim McNamara says the network has about 6000 times more processors than an average home computer, allowing it to handle extremely large amounts of information.

Mr McNamara says it has already received applications for 700,000 CPU core hours from researchers, some of whom have said they would otherwise have had to go overseas to continue their research.

Research projects include simulating airflow over wind turbines and evaluating cancer drugs.

Mr McNamara says the system has further capacity, of millions of CPU core hours, available.

The supercomputers are hosted at the universities of Auckland and Canterbury and at NIWA.