Mystery chipmaker hires Lord of the Rings network

According to the Dominion, Jackson's special effects shop Weta Digital and Telecom has formed the New Zealand Supercomputing Centre in Wellington. The centre is keeping quiet about which chip developer is using the system, but apparently they want it for "advanced-generation computer chip development”. I guess we will find out if the next Intel roadmap shows Mordor as a landmark or if it includes a Balrog inside.

A Canadian biotech firm is also using the system to run a variety of gene sequencing algorithms.

The centre is based around 504 IBM blade servers and runs 1008 Intel 2.8GHz processors. It is the largest commercially-available supercomputing cluster in the southern hemisphere offering the power of about 9000 PCs, several trillion people with a slide rule, or legions of aliens in Alpha Centauri each with an advanced abacus.

You can read all about it here. µ

* INQblot The Weta is the most ugly insect known to humanity, it appears. They grow exclusively in New Zealand and grow from about an inch to a foot long. Only the females bite. They are not equipped with advanced abacus architecture (AAA), as invented by the Snodles of Alpha Centauri.