IBM to Build $10 Mln Commercial Supercomputer for Gene Study
By Paul Horvitz
Armonk, New York, Dec. 18 (Bloomberg) -- International Business Machines Corp. said it has won a $10 million contract to build the largest-yet commercial supercomputer for an Atlanta- based company to help create advanced genetic research tools.
The machine, to be built for NuTec Sciences Inc., a closely held research services company, will perform 7.5 trillion calculations per second -- 600 times faster than IBM's Deep Blue, which defeated chess master Garry Kasparov in 1997 -- IBM said.
The world's largest computer maker is aggressively expanding its presence among companies seeking to use the recently mapped human genome to find new drugs to combat genetic diseases. The effort requires supercomputers to assess which combinations of genes cause diseases and to find the right combinations of chemicals to fight them.
``Scientists can now ask questions that they simply couldn't ask before, or if they asked, they weren't answerable,'' Peter Morrissey, president of NuTec's Life Sciences Division, said in an interview. Genome mapping, he said, ``only opened the door to multitudes of further analysis.''
IBM shares fell $4.63 to $87.81 on Friday, and are down 19 percent this year. The Armonk, New York-based company formed a Life Sciences unit in August with a three-year, $100 million commitment. It said Dec. 4 it will commit up to $100 million more to add a sales team, forge partnerships and invest in companies using genetic data.
The research tools NuTec plans to develop are special computer programs, called algorithms, that will let government and drug company scientists assess gene combinations more quickly and cheaply. Virtually all genetic diseases are caused by a combination of genes rather than a single gene or mutation, Morrissey said.
Data on the Internet
IBM will also work with NuTec to develop software that lets scientists submit complex, data-intensive queries to NuTec and share results securely via the Internet. NuTec has an agreement with the government's National Human Genome Research Institute to lease access to algorithms that NuTec and government scientists jointly develop. The institute is paid royalties.
At present, Charles Schwab Corp., the biggest online broker, operates the world's largest commercial supercomputer, IBM said. The NuTec machine will be about five times faster. The biggest supercomputer overall is IBM's ASCI White, which handles about 12.3 trillion calculations per second to help the U.S. Department of Energy simulate nuclear explosions.
The core of NuTec's machine will be operational in about a month and completed in phases over the next year, said IBM spokesman John Buscemi. The completed machine will consist of 1,250 IBM pSeries 640 server computers. When linked by software, they act as a single machine. The pSeries 640 lists for $13,599. |
