A gem of a computer boosts research base

11:00am Wednesday 4th July 2012 in News

A SUPER COMPUTER capable of helping combat swine flu and finding new planets was unveiled in Oxfordshire yesterday.

The million-pound machine called Emerald will be used by researchers to crunch medical research data on Tamiflu, create software for the worlds most powerful radio telescope and see how human action is likely to affect the climate.

It will also be able to look at swine flu as well as finding better ways to process medical images.

The Government has provided 3.7m to fund two computers, Emerald and Iridis, and their running costs.

Emerald will be based at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), Harwell, while Iridis is at Southampton University. Prof Anne Trefellen, of Oxford University, said Harwell was chosen because it also houses the Diamond Light Source and the Isis neutron source.

Emeralds super-fast processing is combined with high energy efficiency.

Prof Trefellen said: Scientists there are creating a lot of data and it makes sense to avoid moving it large distances.

We are also hoping that as Harwell expands, more businesses will be able to use these facilities.

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A gem of a computer boosts research base