Shining a light on massive data collections

Huge amounts of data produced by research into issues such as cardiac disease, climate change and astrophysics will be easier to navigate when a new supercomputer is commissioned at The University of Queensland in mid-2015.

UQ has partnered with high performance computing specialist XENON Systems to build the FlashLite computer, capable of analysing massive amounts of data.

The project is led by FlashLite designer and UQ Research Computing Centre Director Professor David Abramson.

He said FlashLite would enable big data research and innovation, helping researchers manage their data and making solutions more visible.

“This will allow researchers to spot correlations that could otherwise go undetected using traditional data-processing technology,” Dr Abramson said.

“FlashLite will solve a problem that is everywhere these days: big data, and how to exploit it in critical research.

“FlashLite includes three main innovations: high-speed flash memory, large amounts of high-speed main memory and software shared memory.”

XENON Systems CEO Dragan Dimitrovici said the company had previous experience working with research and academia.

“XENON has committed to joint research and development activities with UQ to co-fund a research project on big data technologies,” he said.

FlashLite is expected to be in use from July this year.

Media: Shannon Lindsay 0420 524 392 or communications@uq.edu.au