NSF awards $1.5M for petascale active data store

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Ian Foster’s blog pointed me to this announcement, originally made last week, about a new large scale data analysis effort funded by the NSF

The Computation Institute, a joint effort of the University of Chicago and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, has received a grant for a computer system that will enable researchers to store, access and analyze massive datasets.

The system is made possible by a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, which includes cost-sharing support from the University of Chicago. The new system is called the Petascale Active Data Store (PADS), which has been optimized for rapid data transactions, both on campus and around the globe.

The design incorporates Tesla nodes to facilitate analysis of data from a variety of disciplines

…“The Tesla nodes will allow us to experiment with algorithms that combine traditional CPUs and special-purpose GPUs to extract results from data faster than in the past,” said Ian Foster, Director of the Computation Institute and the Arthur Holly Compton Distinguished Service Professor in Computer Science at the University of Chicago. “For example, in neuroscience, we will be using the system to accelerate Magnetic Resonance Imaging algorithms to diagnose traumatic brain injury.”