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The Daily Campus: SMU’s new “ManeFrame” supercomputer unveiled at Data Center

ManeFrame, SMU, Mana, supercomputerReporter Jehadu Abshiro with The Daily Campus covered the unveiling of ManeFrame, SMU’s new supercomputer. Daily

The December arrival of the new supercomputer at SMU expands the University’s high performance computing capacity to weigh in among the top academic computers in the United States.

SMU Provost and Vice President Paul W. Ludden sponsored the contest to name the new supercomputer.

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High-performance computers make it possible for researchers to study complex problems with massive amounts of data.

ManeFrame, previously known as MANA, was relocated to Dallas from its previous location in Maui, Hawaii. (Courtesy of mauinow.com)
ManeFrame, previously known as MANA, was relocated to Dallas from its former location in Maui, Hawaii. (Courtesy of mauinow.com)

Reporter Jehadu Abshiro with The Daily Campus covered the unveiling of ManeFrame, SMU’s new supercomputer.

The December arrival of the new supercomputer at SMU expands the University’s high performance computing capacity to weigh in among the top academic computers in the United States.

SMU Provost and Vice President Paul W. Ludden sponsored the contest to name the new supercomputer.

“High performance computing is a transformative technology that impacts many fields across the intellectual landscape, including physics and finance, chemistry and computing, engineering and economics, digital art, computer gaming, biology, data science, and many more fields,” said Ludden.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Jehadu Abshiro
The Daily Campus

The ManeFrame, SMU’s new super computer, was unveiled March 19 at 4 p.m. at the data center on the southeastern end of the campus.

Theoretical performance of MANA combined with SMU’s current system would exceed 120 teraflops. Flops is a measure of computer performance and an average consumer computer ranges from .25 to 7.5.

“High-performance computing has become an indispensible tool in the 21st century,” said James Quick, SMU associate vice president of Research and Dean Graduate Studies in a press release. “The incredible computational power provided by high-performance computing is widely used in science, engineering, business and the arts. ManeFrame brings this capability to Dallas.”

At its peak, ManeFrame is expected to be capable of more than 120 trillion mathematical operations a second.

Faculty and student research into subjects ranging from particle physics, to human behavior, to water quality and drug discovery would be increased. The new tool, installed in December, will be opened for campus in May.

High-performance computing makes it possible for researchers to study complex problems with massive amounts of data using sophisticated software and step-by-step recipes for calculations.

ManeFrame was previously located at the Maui High-Performance Computing Center, one of the five U.S. Department of Defense Supercomputing Resource Centers, according to Director of SMU’s Center for Scientific Computing Thomas Hagstrom.

The supercomputer was named “ManeFrame” in March after Chase Leinberger won the contest sponsored by Provost and Vice President Paul W. Ludden. The winner was decided by email vote by SMU faculty, staff and students.

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By Margaret Allen

Senior research writer, SMU Public Affairs