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04. 06. 12. - 13:56
Salzburg to get super computer
Salzburg University is to get a new super computer to help with research work.
The new computer will be nicknamed "Doppler" after the famous Salzburg experimental physicist Christian Doppler and it will be 100 times more powerful than the current computer used by the University's research teams.
Spokesman for the university, Peter Zinterhof, said that in experimental physics as in many other scientific areas it was of vital importance to be able to carry out realistic simulations – which can only be done with a powerful super computer.
He said: "It can do 20,000 million calculations in a second. That means a lot of power. Lots of things are not possible to work out at all unless you have access to this sort of computer power. It means that things that used to take weeks can now be achieved in hours."
Salzburg-based material researcher Georg Amthauer, who is working on increasing the lifespan of batteries, provides a good example. He said: "We are developing materials that need to be capable of saving energy. That is obviously a very topical subject at the moment. But to do that we need to have access to powerful simulation models and we don't want it to take too long."
The university plans to build the machine itself but the cost of the materials is expected to be around 50,000 Euros.
