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MIT & Compaq Get Down with QCD
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Laboratory for Nuclear Science (LNS) is collaborating with Compaq to develop a cluster of computers capable of doing calculations that will help researchers understand the structure of subatomic particles. Under the research agreement, LNS has purchased a 64 gigaflop prototype cluster of 12 Compaq AlphaServer ES40 systems, and will collaborate with Compaq to optimize its performance for fundamental physics calculations.
"The goal of the MIT-Compaq collaboration is to create a network of AlphaServer computers running the Open Source Linux operating system that will be far more flexible than special purpose machines, at a much lower cost than conventional supercomputers," says Bill Blake, Compaq’s Vice President for High Performance Technical Computing. The cluster will be used for research in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and related computationally intensive science problems.