IBM blue and Irish green

From the Irish Times on Friday

IRELAND’S SUCCESS in fostering collaborative research between academics and industry will demonstrate our success in achieving a knowledge economy, the Tánaiste Mary Coughlan has said. Building these links is “hugely important” to the country’s economic future.

Ms Coughlan was speaking at the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin yesterday at the formal launch of Ireland’s most powerful computer, the IBM Blue Gene supercomputer.

…The Blue Gene is already up and running and installed in the HEAnet facility in Blanchardstown, Dublin. It is operated by the Irish Centre for High End Computing and can be accessed by the country’s universities, institutes of technology and others including the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland and the Tyndall National Institute in Cork.

The 11.4 TFLOPS super is Ireland’s most powerful. And what’s a “Tánaiste?” According to the record of all knowledge, the Tánaiste is the deputy prime minister of Ireland. Pretty far up the food chain for an HPC dedication.