IBM has announced that it will donate a £1m 14-teraflop
Blue Gene/P system to the Meraka Institute which will be hosted by
the Center for High Performance Computing (CHPC) in Cape Town,
South Africa.
IBM said it hopes its donation would spark scientific and
socio-economic progress in the region.
The
Blue Gene supercomputer will be, by far, the most powerful
supercomputer on the African continent, according to IBM. It will
be available free of charge to any qualifying African institution
for use on advanced scientific projects. The application process,
being developed by IBM and the CHPC, will be made public before the
system is installed early in 2008 with the goal of granting access
to any African institution focused on social, economic, and
environmental issues and skills development on the African
continent.
