Australia's new supercomputer

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Increasing raw throughput over its predecessor by a factor of ten, the new Sun Constellation supercomputer was officially launched today.

Named Vayu (from the Hindi word for 'air'), the new computer boasts 11,936 processing cores, 36 terabytes of RAM and around 600 terabytes of disk space and will achieve around 140teraflops.

It all fits into 25 racks, each weighing around a tonne.

Vayu is to be hosted at the Australian National University, with the $15M price tag being covered by ANU, CSIRO and the Federal Government.

The supercomputer will be operated by National Computer Infrastructure (NCI) on behalf of the three funding bodies.  NCI Director, Lindsay Botten observed that the computer will be ranked in the to 30 - 40 supercomputers worldwide, although when iTWire compared the stated performance against today's newly published Top500 list, we found that it would in fact occupy position 25.

CSIRO and ANU will each have 25% of the available time on the computer; the remainder will be allocated via the Merit Allocation Scheme operated by NCI.  Intending users of the system should apply here.

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