Microsoft and Intel Launch Parallel Computing Research Centers to …

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REDMOND, Wash. and SANTA CLARA, Calif., March. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Intel Corporation and Microsoft Corp. are partnering with academia to create two Universal Parallel Computing Research Centers (UPCRC), aimed at accelerating developments in mainstream parallel computing, for consumers and businesses in desktop and mobile computing. The new research centers will be located at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Microsoft and Intel have committed a combined $20 million to the Berkeley and UIUC research centers over the next five years. An additional $8 million will come from UIUC, and UC Berkeley has applied for $7 million in funds from a state-supported program to match industry grants. Research will focus on advancing parallel programming applications, architecture and operating systems software. This is the first joint industry and university research alliance of this magnitude in the United States focused on mainstream parallel computing.
Parallel computing brings together advanced software and processors that have multiple cores or engines, which when combined can handle multiple instructions and tasks simultaneously. Although Microsoft, Intel and many others deliver hardware and software that is capable of handling dual- and quad-core-based PCs today, in the coming years computers are likely to have even more processors inside them.
"Intel has already shown an 80-core research processor, and we are quickly moving the computing industry to a many-core world," said Andrew Chien, vice president, Corporate Technology Group and director, Intel Research. "Working with Microsoft and these two prestigious universities will help catalyze the long-term breakthroughs that are needed to enable dramatic new applications for the mainstream user. We think these new applications will have the ability to efficiently and robustly sense and act in our everyday world with new capabilities: rich digital media and visual interfaces, powerful statistical analyses and search, and mobile applications. Ultimately, these sensing and human interface capabilities will bridge the physical world with the virtual."

earthtimes.org


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This entry was posted on Saturday, March 29th, 2008 at 12:51 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

11 Responses to “Microsoft and Intel Launch Parallel Computing Research Centers to …”

  1. Eddy says on March 29th, 2008 at 1:52 pm :

    The efficiency is Carnot cycle limited.e = (Thot-Tcold)/ThotSo if input/output temperatures Thot and Tcold are similar, efficiency is low, by 2nd law of thermo.And you would need expensive hardware (eg Stirling engine) to squeeze this energy out.You could start by making a Stirling thermal generator considerably more efficient than photovoltaics, but they didn’t do it, because it is expensive, most likely. So putting in a Stirling (or turbine) to sop up the waste heat would be a losing proposition.

  2. Adelaide says on March 29th, 2008 at 2:42 pm :

    If the whole world had just jumped on the nuclear bandwagon like France and Japan did, we wouldn’t have depleted our oil supplies as quickly.This is the price we are paying for ignoring nuclear energy.As for now: Build nuclear power plants like crazy and use sugarcane (not corn) ethanol if you need a portable fuel.Or, synthesize oil with nuclear power.

  3. Sheridan says on March 29th, 2008 at 3:33 pm :

    Best of luck to them.

  4. Coty says on March 29th, 2008 at 4:23 pm :

    You sound more knowledgeable on this topic, so I’ll have to defer to your opinion. Still, it seems as if there’s a lot of heat being output then there must be some way to make use of it besides warming your home’s tap water.

  5. Lake says on March 29th, 2008 at 5:14 pm :

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_boycotts_of_Israel

  6. Kodey says on March 29th, 2008 at 6:04 pm :

    “The world must stop the indiscrimant use of solar power to aggresively oppress Palestinians, who survive on candle power alone.” - Noam Chomsky”This another example of using the holocaust to justify Israel’s crimes. Solar concentraion camps? Pleasee…” - Ahmadhinjad

  7. Pearle says on March 29th, 2008 at 6:55 pm :

    Real shame what happening. You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

  8. Tajuana says on March 29th, 2008 at 7:46 pm :

    ‘5x as efficient’ because it coverts up to 70% of incoming energy to electricity or heat.Combining heat and electricity is clever, but is useful only if you need the heat. But sunny areas that are good for solar electricity are less likely to need lots of heat.At the end of the day, this actively pointed system of mirrors will have to compete with the new generation of mechanically simpler bolt-on-and-forget photovoltaic panels, like Nanosolar.

  9. Solomon says on March 29th, 2008 at 8:36 pm :

    Is this system supposed to be better than the sunflower?

  10. Roni says on March 29th, 2008 at 9:27 pm :

    To bad the “concentrated solar power” is actually Palestinian children being used as D-batteries…..