Ireland’s latest supercomputer needs a name and the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) is calling on primary and secondary students of Irish schools for their submissions.
The ICHEC has launched a competition to find a name for the supercomputer, which is being installed at the Telecommunications Software and Systems Group (TSSG) data centre in Waterford Institute of Technology.
The competition is open to all schools/CoderDojos across Ireland. The winning class or dojo and their teacher/mentor will be invited to the naming ceremony during Science Week, from 10-17 November 2013.
Each student will also receive a T-shirt bearing the supercomputer’s new name on the front and a photo of the machine on the back. They will also receive a trip to the TSSG hosting facility to see the supercomputer itself.
The competition closes on 30 September.
What’s in a name?
Previously, Ireland’s supercomputers were named after famous scientists that were either born in or worked in Ireland. The ICHEC believes it’s time to branch out in the search for names, so the utility of supercomputing can be more widely seen, as well. For example, F1 racing, social media, weather forecasting and car/aeroplane design all rely on supercomputers.
Ireland’s latest supercomputer will more than quadruple computing resources previously available to scientists in Ireland, according to Science Foundation Ireland (SFI).
Overall, the new supercomputer will enable scientists and companies to solve their scientific and industry-related problems much faster, said the SFI. The machine will provide an estimated 295,000,000 hours of computation, not counting the power of the accelerators.
The €4m supercomputer has been funded primarily by the SFI. The supercomputer was purchased from SGI with the storage provided by DataDirect Networks.
Computer component image via Shutterstock
