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Mary Hanafin TD, Minister for Education and Science, together with Prof Luke Drury of Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies and Prof Adrian Ottewill of the Department of Mathematical Physics.
Mary Hanafin TD, Minister for Education and Science, formally inaugurated a major new computer facility in UCD on behalf of the CosmoGrid consortium on Monday 7th February. The system, which cost just over �400,000, contains some 220 individual processors which can all work together on large scientific problems such as understanding the impact of global climate change at the regional level, or the mechanisms leading to earthquakes, or the process of star formation.
The CosmoGrid project is funded under the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI) and brings together some sixty researchers in nine institutions throughout Ireland to work on advanced computational models of natural phenomena. The project led by the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, with the other members being UCD, NUIG, DCU, TCD, UCC, Met Eireann, Armagh Observatory and HEAnet. At UCD scientists from the Departments of Mathematical Physics and Geology are involved in the project.
Grid computing involves the sharing of computational resources over high-capacity computer networks, in the same way that electricity is shared over the power grid It is widely seen as the next revolution in information technology. CosmoGrid is Ireland�s first major project in this area.
The computer cluster has been named Rowan in honour of William Rowan Hamilton, Ireland�s greatest scientist, who was born 200 years ago and to mark the start of the �Hamilton Year � celebrating Irish science� as the year 2005 has been officially designated.
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