News Releases

Supernets for global research to shine at iGrid

Chappell Brown
Aug 29, 2005 (9:00 AM)

Peterborough, N.H. - The global alliance seeking to build 10-Gbit optical networks and applications to run on them will meet next month to showcase experiments built on high-tech input from 21 nations. Larry Smarr, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, or CalIt2, called the iGrid meeting a pivotal moment in the world of scientific computing. CalIt2 (San Diego) will host the meeting, Sept. 26-30.

More than 40 global-computing demos scheduled for the meeting cover an array of application types, including scientific, the arts and virtual reality. “We are supporting about 100 Gbits/second of data into the building,” Smarr said. “You are going to see for the first time just how many different applications are enabled by this new infrastructure.”

The iGrid alliance promotes the transnational use of existing multiple 10-Gbit/s networks to advance scientific research. It has been meeting at roughly two-year intervals since 1998 to prototype this new interactive computing. As the global optical network matures, its proponents maintain, research groups on different continents will be able to unite their computing facilities at will.

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