Researchers turn to low-cost clusters to crack mysteries

Commercial, off-the-shelf computers based on Intel processors are powering a surge in life sciences and bio-information technology projects in Asia.

Experts say dozens of these initiatives are using 'clusters' - networked personal computers, servers or workstations combined into a single system - to solve complex problems that used to be done on expensive, monolithic supercomputers.

Jason Fedder, Intel Asia-Pacific enterprise solutions group manager, expected this trend to continue for the next few years as Asian academic and scientific institutions tightened their information technology (IT) budgets.

'At least 15 leading Asian organisations have recently selected Intel-based, high-performance clusters to run various life sciences programmes,' Mr Fedder said on the sidelines of a bio-IT conference in Hong Kong last week.

'These organisations are involved in a variety of initiatives, ranging from gene sequencing, protein folding and functional genomics, to Chinese medicine projects.'

Intel clusters are used for research projects at Hong Kong Baptist University and the University of Hong Kong, Tsinghua University in the mainland, and the Kaohsiung City Government in Taiwan. Beyond Greater China, they are used by the Linux Competency Centre of Singapore Computer Systems and the Genome Institute of Singapore, and in India by the Institute of Bioinformatics and Applied Biotechnology in India. The Queensland Parallel Supercomputer Foundation in Australia also uses Intel clusters.

'Buying an Intel-based cluster running Linux gives us more bang for our buck, plus we have access to the plethora of open-source software developed for this environment,' Fred Hickernell, mathematics professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, said.