CAMBRIDGE, U.K.--"Deep computing" is the glittering phrase IBM holds out to universities that join it in R&D projects--the latest being Swansea University in Wales. The school and IBM are jointly investing in a 1.7- to 2.7- teraflops supercomputer from the Armonk, New York, company, along with software and training for high-tech medical studies.
Dubbed "Blue C," the computer is the ballast in Swansea's planned $100 million Institute of Life Sciences (ILS). Officials expect ILS to focus on visualization, medical nanotechnology, and personalized medicine. The Welsh Assembly has added about $35 million to $6 million from private sources in hopes that the institute will generate what Wales's economic development minister Andrew Davies calls "massive economic wealth." The rest of the $100 million will be raised piecemeal.
IBM representative David White says the company's goal is to whet the appetites of top researchers for its products. It has previously partnered with the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and the University of Cambridge, U.K.'s Cancer Research Center.
