Texas A&M System teams with IBM

COLLEGE STATION & ARMONK, USA: Texas A&M University System and IBM announced an agreement that is the beginning of a broad research collaboration supported by one of the largest computational sciences infrastructure dedicated to advances in agriculture, geosciences and engineering.

The collaboration will leverage the power of big data analytics and high performance computing (HPC) systems for innovative solutions across a spectrum of challenges, such as improving extraction of Earth-based energy resources, facilitating the smart energy grid, accelerating materials development, improving disease identification and tracking in animals, and fostering better understanding and monitoring of our global food supplies.

"Combining the incredible intellectual and technological resources of Texas A&M University and IBM will further position Texas as a leader in identifying and solving some of the most complex challenges we face," Texas Gov. Rick Perry said. "The work that will be done here will change lives and potentially save lives not just in our state, but our nation and around the world."

IBM will provide the infrastructure for the joint research consisting of Blue Gene/Q technology, Power and System x servers, and General Parallel File Systems (GPFS) Storage Systems. A test of the Blue Gene/Q on campus found that it ran a material sciences problem that previously took weeks to solve and produced a solution in "a fraction of an hour" with much greater analytical depth.