Sony to contract Terra Soft to build first Cell-based Supercomputer

Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. (SCEI) has contracted Terra Soft to manufacture of the world's first Cell-based supercomputing cluster, a 3000 sq-ft supercomputing competence, proficient of housing 2400 1U systems.

Making use of the test cluster E.coli to accomplish superior software expansion, optimization, and testing emphasizing Y-HPC and Y-Bio applied to the Cell Broadband Engine, the clusters will add in Cell-based PS3 systems and Cell Broadband Engine for superior level of performance over traditional core CPUs.

The cluster will run the new Yellow Dog Linux v5.0 operating system; a beta version of Y-HPC v2.0, the first commercial, cross-architecture Linux cluster construction suite; the Moab cluster management suite by Cluster Resources; and Y-Bio v1.1, a suite of gene sequence analysis tools soon to be optimized for the Cell processor.

To quote Glen Otero, Director of Life Sciences Research for Terra Soft Solutions,

This cluster represents a two-fold opportunity: to optimize a suite of open-source life science applications for the Cell processor; to develop a hands-on community around this world-first cluster whereby researchers and life science studies at all levels may benefit. Once up and running with our first labs engaged, we will expand the community through invitations and referrals, supporting a growing knowledge base and library of Cell optimized code, open and available to life science researchers everywhere.

Via: osnews