Radio Script
1999

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Super! Computer
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STORY: The first thing you notice as you enter the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center's large white room...is the noise.

BEDFORD: "We're listening to the hum of computers, and the hum of air conditioning units and power distribution units. This is the room where we put everything that needs special care and feeding, special coolants, special electrical requirements. Sometimes, in the case of a couple of these computers, they don't need anything special. They just bother us because they're so noisy, so that's why they're in here. So we've got the J-90, the T3E, and several of the visualization computers are in here."

That's Virginia Bedford, technical services director at the center. She takes care of two of the world's fastest computers, the T3E and J-90, nicknamed Yukon and Chilkoot.

Built by Silicon Graphics, makers of the CRAY Supercomputer, Yukon and Chilkoot stand just beyond the glass public viewing window on the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus. Yet for all the noise surrounding them, the computers themselves are each only about the size of a refrigerator.

BEDFORD: "Yes, you are looking at a bunch of refrigerators. We might as well walk around so you can see the front of the refrigerators. One thing that might strike you is how empty this room is right now. A couple of years ago this room was full. It's a good example of how as computers are getting more powerful, they're also shrinking. We don't need nearly as much electricity and coolant. In fact, I don't know what our current electric bill is but I'm thinking that it used to be $25,000 a month. You don't have to put that on the air. Anyway, our electric bill has shrunk considerably as all our facility requirements have gone down."

But the question that's most on my mind is just how "super" are these supercomputers? In quieter surroundings, Virginia Bedford explains. Well, sort of.

BEDFORD: "The T3E has a peak potential parallel performance of 82.8 gigaflops. The J-90, which we call Chilkoot, has a potential peak of 2.4 gigaflops."

In computer-speak, what Virginia Bedford means is that Yukon can do 82.8 BILLION calculations per second. Yes, BILLION, with a B, as in Boy! that's some computer.

It's not something most people on campus talk much about, but without them, much of the research that occurs here and on university campuses across the country couldn't be done, according to Gary Hagestead, the Supercomputer Center's director of Administrative Services.

HAGESTEAD: "We've currently got 271 users on the system. The largest consumer on the system is the U.S. Navy. We have Department of Defense researchers all doing non-classified research, and non-DOD researchers, primarily the academic researchers. We also have some researchers from the federal government through NOAA, all doing similar climate, weather, ocean type research modeling."

One of those users is researcher Larry Hinzman, an environmental engineer at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Using the supercomputers, he and his colleagues are constructing complex models of the Arctic and subarctic ecosystem--models that are helping scientists understand everything from how thawing permafrost might alter the landscape to how forest fires burn.

HINZMAN: "We really need the supercomputer to run these models. These are complex programs that take a lot of data, and so we need a lot of disk space to run these programs. They really take an inordinate amount of time to run, so the parallel processing is really needed in order to run these programs in real time. Real time means running the programs faster than what they would run in reality."

Other researchers are using the supercomputer's blindingly fast speed to do such things as engineer new roads that are resistant to melting permafrost, and model tidal wave impacts on Alaska coastal communities. Many of the people who use the supercomputer aren't even on campus. They access the computer via the Internet through the center's web page.

OUTRO: For Arctic Science Journeys, this is Doug Schneider, reporting from Fairbanks, Alaska.