Only 99 others can outdo the power of UNL's new 256-processor supercomputer.
Lincoln's Miller and Paine Building, 121 S. 13th St., has become the home to the world's 100th fastest supercomputer.
Through a group decision by computer science and engineering students and faculty, the supercomputer was dubbed PrairieFire.
David Swanson, research computing facility coordinator, said it was not exactly a scientific process.
"It's located in the middle of the great plains and it puts out 90,000 BTU (British Thermal Units)," he said.
"There's no need for a wood-burning stove in there."
The $500,000 computer can perform at a rate as high as 250 gigaflops. One gigaflop is equal to one-billion floating point operations per second.
PrairieFire contains more than 100 gigabytes of collective RAM and two terabytes, equal to 2 trillion bytes, of collection hard drive storage.
To put this machine in perspective, it is roughly 400 times faster than a Pentium III desktop PC.
The six refrigerator-sized racks of machinery were installed by UNL faculty, computer vendors and students. According to an international list maintained by the University of Mannheim and University of Tennessee (www.top500.org), PrairieFire is ranked around number 100 in size.
According to www.it.mycareer.com.au, IBM is currently in the process of building the world's most powerful supercomputer. It will be used to simulate nuclear weapons testing for the U.S. government.
Blue Gene/L will be 800 times faster than PrairieFire, performing at 200 trillion operations per second.
The supercomputer, to be completed by 2005, will simulate phenomena such as aging of materials, fires and explosions.
PrairieFire will be used for far different purposes.
"Right now, researchers in chemistry are studying molecular particular phases, one which is called Nebraska ice," Swanson said.
"Computations will also be done in the field of artificial intelligence."
Nebraska ice is made by squashing water flat to create a two-dimensional glass-like substance instead of three-dimensional ice crystals.
In general, the supercomputer will enable advanced simulation to perform product analysis, design, development, testing and manufacturing in a virtual environment.
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