The Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC-CNS) officially started operating yesterday.
Run by a consortium formed by the Ministry of Education and Science, the Generalitat de Catalunya and the Polytechnic University (UPC), the BSC-CNS could become the headquarters of the future European Supercomputing Center, according to the Spanish Government’s intentions.
The now officially opened center is known for hosting the MareNostrum, the fastest supercomputer in Europe and the eighth in the ranking which started operating in April this year.
With a surface area of ​​120 square meters and a weight of 45 tons, MareNostrum works with the Linux operating system and is capable of doing «42 by 10 to 12» operations per second, according to what was explained by Mateo Valero, director of BSC-CNS, cited by La Razon Digital.
The supercomputer, made up of 4,564 processors and intended for research in the fields of medicine, climate change, aeronautics and mechanical engineering, «is capable of doing in an hour what a normal computer does in the space of a year,» said Mateo Valero.
The BSC-CNS scientists are already, however, «assembling» a new supercomputer that will be 25 times faster than the MareNostrum and scheduled to start operating in 2008.
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