Aachen, Germany-based massively parallel computer manufacturer Parsytec GmbH and the European Community are co-funding a European-based project, Zeus, aimed at boosting European industrial performance through the application of massively parallel processing. The four German, Dutch and Greek participants, which joined the project in July, all have freshly installed T805 Transputer-based GigaCube computer systems from Parsytec. Each is to pursue their own individual goals, but will also ‘loosely’ collaborate on research, mainly into Grand Challenge technical and scientific supercomputing applications. The two largest installations are in the Paderborn Centre for Parallel Computing and the Mathematical Institute of the University of Cologne in Germany. Both have 1,024-node Parsytec machines, featuring 16 64-processor Gigacubes. The Paderborn system is to concentrate on algorithmic research, mainly for fluid dynamics and financial forecasting. Cologne University, which acts as a supercomputing centre for industries in its area, is to concentrate also on business economics, global economic models, currency exchange trends and fluid mechanics. Since the university has close links with DLR, the German Space Research Society, it is an ideal partner too for the German aerospace industry. The University of Athens and University of Amsterdam both have entry-level 512-node – or eight-Gigacube Parsytec computers. The Greek machine is to be used primarily for image processing, parallel databases and satellite communications. The University of Amsterdam is to share fluid dynamics research expertise with the Shell Oil Co among others. Together the participants form a supercomputing research base similar to government funded models in the US. The first Zeus report based on research completed this summer into the parallelisation of physics applications, is to be published next year. It is hoped that the initiative will continue to snowball, attracting new participants from European supercomputer manufacturers and sponsorship from wider industry into research projects. Where possible, applications created under the project will be marketed, mainly in Europe – but also in niche US and Japanese markets – to help generate cash. Well over UKP1m has gone into the project so far but exact figures are not available.
