Tuesday 23 December 2008

NVIDIA brings supercomputing to the desktop

US technology firm NVIDIA rolled out high-performance "personal supercomputers" that let desktop workstations handle mind-boggling tasks once far beyond their capabilities. Computers built with innovative NVIDIA graphics processing units (GPUs) are capable of handling calculations typically relegated to expensive supercomputing "clusters", a technology breakthrough the company says could soon bring lightning speeds to the next generation of computers aimed at the consumer market. 

NVIDIA's Tesla Personal Supercomputers deliver approximately 250 times the processing power of current computer workstations for similar prices, according to the California-based company.

"This changes everything. This supercomputing power is being brought to the workstation," Tesla computing products general manager Andy Keane said.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other universities and research facilities are already using GPU-based personal supercomputers. "GPU-based systems enable us to run life science codes in minutes rather than the hours it took earlier," said Jack Collins of the Advanced Biomedical Computing Centre in the US state of Maryland. "This exceptional speedup has the ability to accelerate the discovery of potentially life-saving anti-cancer drugs." 

NVIDIA, founded in 1993, became renowned for GPUs that drive sophisticated computer game and video hardware.  

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