IBM supercomputer Blue Gene/P boosts Bulgaria's advance towards knowledge-based economy

The Bulgarian State Agency for Information Technology and Communications (SAITC) and IBM Bulgaria today announced the Bulgarian IBM Blue Gene/P - the first installation of the world famous Blue Gene computer in Bulgaria. SAITC will use IBM Blue Gene/P for high-end computing-intensive projects in life sciences, new drugs discovery, financial modelling and education.

The Linux based system contains 8192 densely packed microprocessors and runs at 23.42 trillion operations per second (TFLOPS). Based on the current Top500.org list, the Bulgarian IBM Blue Gene/P would today be amongst the top one hundred most powerful supercomputers in the world. IBM Bulgaria has already installed the two-rack system at the Supercomputing Centre of the SAITC.

'The National Supercomputing Applications Centre now has the most advanced computer equipment and processing power. It is an exceptional benefit for our country,' said Sergey Stanishev, Prime Minister of Republic of Bulgaria, at the opening ceremony of the centre.

Organisations, such as Bulgarian Academy of Science, Ministry of Finance and Bulgarian universities will be able to access the computing power of the IBM Blue Gene/P to carry out complex scientifical research. In addition, the Ministry of Finance and the National Centre for Human Genomics and Proteomics (Genpromed), a newly formed public research entity in human genomics and proteomics, will rely on IBM Blue Gene/P in its collaboration with the IBM Research Laboratory in Zurich in supercomputing projects in the areas of financial modelling, genome studies, and drugs development.

'This agreement with IBM begins a new era of supercomputing in Bulgaria and creates huge potential to boost scientific research in the region as a whole,' said Plamen Vachkov, Chairman of the Bulgarian State Agency for Information Technology and Communications

Four are the main target areas where IBM Blue Gene/P's computing power will be used:

- DNA-based diagnostics - IBM Blue Gene/P will run algorithms aimed at isolating key genes and drug targets in the most common diseases. Analysing the function of population-validated disease genes and the proteins they encode will provide clearer picture of the underlying biological pathway of diseases affecting people.

- Accelerated drug discovery - Blue Gene/P's supercomputing power will be used for simulations for new drugs development. The supercomputing drug modelling integrates mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology with advanced, high performance computing and engineering. This enables appropriate filtering of the vast information growing out of the sequencing of the human genome and thus results in significantly shorter time to market for new drugs.

- Financial modelling - The interactive supercomputing approach allows for continual feedback and refinement in the whole financial cycle, providing higher quality models, algorithms and, ultimately, much more accurate portfolio predictions, applied in country's budget planning, predictive disaster modelling, etc. Massive data sets and model complexities are being handled without having to lose the interactivity and with ease of use.

- Supercomputing to boost skills of Bulgarian students - universities today are looking for the fastest, most innovative and cost-efficient systems to help their intellectual communities translate the research they generate into viable information. With IBM's Blue Gene/P students from Bulgarian universities gain the processing power and system resources they need to make more accurate decisions in research and raise the profile of Bulgaria within research facilities and academic communities.

'IBM is a leader in supercomputing, attributable to our ability to offer our clients worldwide next generation of supercomputers, handling large amounts of data while consuming a fraction of the power and floor space required,' said Alexander Rakov, country general manager, IBM Bulgaria. 'Our agreement with The State Agency for Information Technology and Communications demonstrates not only our commitment to collaborate with leading Bulgarain government institutions, but to Bulgaria's national scientific agenda.'

Blue Gene/P is the second generation of the world's most powerful supercomputer. Since 2004 IBM's Blue Gene has led the Top500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers (www.top500.org).

Based on the current Top500.org list, four out of the top ten most powerful servers are IBM Blue Gene. Because of its unique design that allows for the dense packaging of processors, memory and interconnecting circuits, Blue Gene consumes a fraction of the power and floor space required by today's supercomputers. One rack of Blue Gene/P is equivalent in size to a domestic refrigerator and is at least seven times more energy-efficient than any other similar design. The 'modular' and scalable design of Blue Gene means that The State Agency for Information Technology and Communications can add racks as computing requirements grow.