Supercomputer Hits South African Shores

South Africa's newest supercomputer, a Sun Microsystems hybrid, went online in Cape Town earlier this month, providing the local and regional research community with a powerful tool for tackling problems of climate change, energy security and human health.

With a peak performance of 31-trillion calculations per second, the hybrid supercomputer is the fastest in Africa and ranks among the top 500 in the world.

By using the system, months of computing on research projects can be replaced by weeks, days or even hours of work. It is housed at the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC), a unit of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

"Through the addition of this Sun Microsystems hybrid supercomputer, the CHPC has become a facility that holds its own among the best in the world," CSIR chief executive Sibusiso Sibisi said in a statement.

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