TORONTO — It has taken a year and $50 million to put together, and its brain takes up as much room as a warehouse full of refrigerators.
Today, the monster finally opens its eyes, as the University of Toronto's newest supercomputer the fastest such machine in Canada goes online.
This computer can perform more than 300 trillion calculations a second and simulate the Earth's climate 100 years into the future in four days.
It can also help researchers study cosmic background radiation, a calculation-intensive task that offers a glimpse into what the universe looked like 13 billion years ago.
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A small part of the IBM System x iDataPlex server has been operating since late last year in a warehouse in the Vaughan area north of Toronto.
But today, the machine's full power is being unleashed.
"This positions us on a world research stage at a whole new level," said Chris Pratt, strategic initiatives executive at IBM Canada.
"This isn't one step or two steps; this is like, 'Wow.'"
The machine uses the same amount of energy, at peak consumption, as 4,000 homes and is about 30 times more powerful than the next-fastest research computer in Canada.
It can whirl data through its digital veins at the rate equal to about two DVD movies a second and is among the 15 fastest computers in the world, and the fastest outside the United States. (Globe and Mail)