IU plans to replace its largest supercomputer system, Big Red, with the fastest university-owned supercomputer in the nation. Named Big Red II, the next-generation Cray XK supercomputer will be capable of one thousand trillion floating-point operations per second, or one petaFLOPS. Big Red II will be developed and deployed through a joint effort between Cray and IU to provide an innovative supercomputer that advances research particularly in areas related to big data.

“Big Red II is the next step in executing IU’s strategic IT plans in support of the university,” said Brad Wheeler, IU vice president for information technology and CIO. “Using the original Big Red, IU researchers have secured more than $253 million in grant funding, and we foresee a similar positive impact being made by Big Red II. The key importance of these systems has been in the discoveries they have enabled, represented in thousands of published papers produced by the IU scientists who have used them. Big Red has been an extraordinary value for IU over its almost seven years of service, and the frontiers with Big Red II will be even more expansive.”

Tags: research-technologies