News
Cosmology machine heads for new home in Africa
(26 April 2006)
A supercomputer at Durham University's Physics Department that has been a star performer in unravelling the evolution of the Universe is taking on a new role to boost higher education work in Africa. The Institute for Computational Cosmology (ICC) at Durham has donated one of its 'crown jewels' to the Kigali Institute for Science and Technology (KIST) in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. The supercomputer, called CENTAUR, was the original engine of the Cosmology Machine which has been used by ICC researchers to simulate the evolution of the Universe, from the Big Bang to the present day. CENTAUR still has a long and active life, but the cosmologists need even more powerful equipment to continue their work. The Cosmology Machine was supplied by Sun Microsystems who arranged the donation to Rwanda, where it will be used as individual workstations and for large calculations needed in research. Director of the ICC Professor Carlos Frenk, said that since the development and use of the cosmology machine was part of an international research network, it was very appropriate that it should continue to be used by the international higher education community, when the time had come to replace it. The ICC?s replacement computer system will be at least 50 times more powerful.