PROVO — If technology is the wave of the future, then Brigham Young University is sailing into the 21st century at full crest.
A new $5 million supercomputer unveiled Tuesday at BYU can be used to advance fields ranging from medicine to motion pictures.
The computer — an SGI Onyx 2 Origin 2000 — is built around a powerful graphics system and helps researchers investigate complex systems with real-time, three-dimensional images.
Visual supercomputing combines graphics and computing to conduct research unapproachable a few years ago.
For computer geeks, the 14-foot-long machine has 32 processors, 32 gigabytes of RAM and 1.5 terabytes of hard-drive space.
That's real power, says R. Brent Adams, a BYU industrial design professor whose students will use the machine, which has been called the "Reality Monster."
For those with limited computer savvy, here's a comparison that may give you an idea of the computer's super-strength: The supercomputer can easily store the information that could be packed on 1 million floppy disks.
What does that mean to researchers? What took eight hours on another computer will now take eight seconds, Adams said.
"A lot of things simply cannot happen on a PC that we can do on this," he said.
With the "Reality Monster," Adams' students can start work on a project with General Motors. Company executives want students to design new versions of the Hummer, a sport-utility vehicle.
Philanthropist Ira Fulton, a wealthy developer from Arizona, donated the funds to buy the machine, which also will be used by BYU to sequence DNA, create "Toy Story"-like cartoons and create virtual historic sites.
SGI, a California-based leading supplier of interactive computing systems, reduced the cost to BYU because the machine would be used for educational purposes, officials said.
The company, co-founded by University of Utah graduate Jim Clark, who also created Netscape Communications Corp., offers various products in the industry, ranging from low-end desktop workstations to servers and high-end supercomputers.
"We're very excited about the new computing capabilities the SGI supercomputer brings that will aid not only engineering students and faculty but many others campuswide," said Doug Chabries, dean of the College of Engineering and Technology.