i just found an older article about it when i was searching for additional info. i guess it has been in the works for awhile.
http://www.tulsaworld.com/business/article.aspx?subjectid=32&articleid=20110910_32_E1_Apower102071#Supercomputer being built to serve Tulsa
By ROBERT EVATT World Staff Writer
Published: 9/10/2011 1:56 AM
Last Modified: 9/10/2011 6:01 AM
A powerful supercomputer system is being set up in Tulsa, and multiple organizations will be able to benefit.
The Tulsa Community Supercomputer is being built as a $6.7 million partnership between the University of Tulsa, the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa, Oklahoma State University-Tulsa and Tulsa Community College, although other research centers, businesses and independent enterprises could potentially access the system and help it expand.
David Greer, executive director of TU's Institute for Information Security, said the collaboration isn't just helping to get the project off the ground, it has the potential to build out one of the nation's top 25 supercomputers with academic ties.
"If we combine our resources, we can build a much better computer than we could do individually," he said.
Greer said the supercomputer - projected to be up and running early next year - will speed academic research, assist corporations with massive projects and attract more technology jobs to the area.
The group is in the middle of fundraising for the project and has already accumulated half of the $6.7 million needed, thanks in part to a donation of $800,000 by the not-for-profit Oklahoma Innovation Institute from money it received from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.
Additionally, the city of Tulsa has committed space at One Technology Center, home to City Hall, for the supercomputer.
Greer said the single location not only focuses resources but also addresses the massive amount of infrastructure such a project needs.
"Supercomputing is high-process computing," he said. "It requires a lot of power and a lot of cooling. We estimated that if the University of Tulsa was to build their own facility from scratch, upwards of 60 percent of the budget would be to just to get the room ready."
Rather than being a single-unit in a box, Greer said the supercomputer will be a series of individual nodes linked together and sharing the processing power.
Each node will be more powerful than the average corporate server, and Greer estimated the project group will have 80 to 100 linked up when the supercomputer becomes operational.
And that's just the start. The group is inviting other academic centers, businesses and assorted entities to buy into the partnership and add nodes. Potentially, the supercomputer could have hundreds of them because the system is being built with expansion in mind.
Greer said the partnership structure will ensure that the supercomputer is used as much as possible.
Each partner will use its contributed nodes at any time, but partners also will be able to borrow other nodes that aren't being used at a given time, giving their projects a significant boost. The supercomputer will be able to handle multiple processes simultaneously.
"Members can grow their capabilities on demand, as needed," Greer said.
The results could be dramatic. Greer said he has talked with energy companies that compute gigantic models for exploration planning, and they've told him their processing often takes months. The supercomputer has the potential to cut that time to just a week or two, he said.
