Business | Technology
Varsity project to create a virtual Saudi Arabia
One of the world's fastest and most powerful computer clusters commenced operations last week [July 2] at the Munich Centre for Advanced Computing (MAC) in southern Germany with the goal of providing the hardware for an ambitious project called "Virtual Arabia".
- By Arno Maierbrugger, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:45 July 10, 2009
Dubai: One of the world's fastest and most powerful computer clusters commenced operations last week [July 2] at the Munich Centre for Advanced Computing (MAC) in southern Germany with the goal of providing the hardware for an ambitious project called "Virtual Arabia".
The project aims to put together a detailed virtual profile of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. "Such an environment will allow the user to look both above and underneath the earth surface in an integrated way," said Dr Hans Joachim Bungartz, professor at the Department for Informatics at the centre and project leader, speaking at the official opening of the centre.
The MAC is a research cluster of the University of Technology Munich, which has signed a cooperation agreement with the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Kaust) in Jeddah for a period of four years.
Kaust has committed $21 million (Dh77 million) for the project in Munich - Virtual Arabia - plus an environment-related carbon dioxide research project. The University and the Federal State of Bavaria will add one million euros annually.
"The goal of this project is to develop a virtual environment for the interactive visual exploration of Saudi Arabia," explains Bungartz.
Researchers will be able to interactively explore three-dimensional structures and dynamic seismic processes. "The researchers can also study atmospheric change and effects of built or planned infrastructure in a comprehensive way. The application will allow essentially all Kaust research institutes to use the functionality," Bungartz says.
By using this kind of advanced computer imaging technology, Saudi Arabia wants to make exploration of new oil and gas fields more effective. The commercial factors behind the project aside, new processes of virtual reality are capable of predicting certain changes in geology and climate and the impact of man-made structures.
The researchers are also examining the possibility of using empty oil wells as disposal sites for climate-damaging carbon dioxide.
The Munich heavy-duty computer HLRB II - a SGI Altix system by Silicon Graphics running on a Linux Enterprise Server operating system - is based on a cluster of 9,700 core processors, which provides the system with a peak performance of 62 teraflops per second, which is 2,600 times faster than today's fastest available personal computer.
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