Supercomputer being described as world’s most powerful becomes operational

What is being expected to prove the most powerful computer of its kind in the world became operational at the University of Florida this week.

The supercomputer has been named ‘Novo-G’ by its designers . The first part of its name came from the Latin term for “make anew, change, alter”, and the second from “G” for “genesis”.

It is a “reconfigurable” computer that can rearrange its internal circuitry to suit the task at hand.

Alan George, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of UF’s National Science Foundation Center for High-Performance Reconfigurable Computing, says that applications may range from space satellites to research supercomputers — anywhere size, energy and high speed are important.

Traditional computers use so-called “fixed logic devices” to perform a large variety of tasks, but this approach requires a substantial amount of overhead in space and energy, no matter what work needs to be done.

While special-purpose computers can be built to perform certain tasks very well, they are not flexible.

According to George, reconfigurable computers make the best of both worlds because they can rearrange their internal circuitry like Lego blocks to create the most appropriate architecture for each assignment, and, thus, can be from 10 to 100 times faster than other computers their size, while using five to 10 times less energy.

Although the concept has been proven, reconfigurable computers remain at the research stage and are not easy to use. One of the main goals of the NSF Center is to pioneer techniques to make reconfigurable computers more accessible.

“It is very powerful technology, but it is also very complicated technology. We don’t want this important technology to be accessible only to experts,” George said.

The University of Florida has three partner universities in its reconfigurable computing center — Brigham Young University, George Washington University and Virginia Tech.

The university also has about 30 industry and government partners.