Gateway

Issue date: 12/14/07 Section: News

Dick Holland and other contributers donated millions of dollars for FireFly to PKI, giving the University one of the largest supercomputers in the world. (photo by Bill Wendl) [Click to enlarge]

Housed in the Peter Kiewit Institute, a new supercomputer named Firefly is poised to take the academic and business communities into the stratosphere.

When it is completely installed and fine tuned by early 2008, Firefly will rank among the Top 20 computers in the world for processing speed, said Winnie Callahan, the institute's executive director.

A dedication ceremony held Dec. 7 introduced Firefly to the campus community. The computer itself is comprised of more than 1,100 individual processor cores operating together.

"This day is about partnership, partnership between the government and our local leaders," said U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson during the dedication. "Nebraska has the opportunity to become one of the major centers in our country."

The computer will allow public-private partnerships in defense, life sciences, medicine, finance and higher education.

The Holland Foundation, the Suzanne and Walter Scott Foundation, Dell Inc. as well as First National Bank were among the many contributors to the project. With their support, additional partnerships have already begun.

In September, Gallup Organization signed a contract to run its World Poll software on the supercomputer as early as next year.

"Ten years ago we wanted to build an institute that would prevent the brain drain we were experiencing in Omaha and Nebraska," said Walter Scott at the dedication, "And at the same time provide a world class educational opportunity for the students here at Nebraska."

Having one of the world's fastest computers on campus will make Omaha and UNO more attractive and provide opportunity for students, faculty and the business community, said University of Nebraska President James B. Milliken.

"This event and the new Holland Computing Center are great examples of the tremendous momentum the University of Nebraska is enjoying today," Milliken said.

UNO will certainly be utilizing the supercomputer, said Chancellor John Christensen.

"From an academic point of view, it's going to be a critical advancement for our research agendas and an opportunity for students to train in a parallel computing environment," Christensen said. "The opportunity for the community to get involved in using this really fits our community engagement agenda as well."

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