“Virginia Tech’s decision to replace its ‘Big Mac’ supercomputer processors with Apple Computer Xserve G5 servers will make the installation more attractive to the federal agencies and organizations negotiating with the university for its novel supercomputer technology,” W. David Gardner reports for TechWeb News.
“A Virginia Tech spokesperson said the university and Apple Computer have received ‘a number of inquiries’ from federal agencies to use the university’s installation or its supercomputer-kit technology to build their own supercomputer installations. The key proprietary piece of the installation–recently ranked the third most powerful supercomputer in the world–is its fault-tolerant software environment called D