NEWS HIGHLIGHTS
- Intel presents Professor Stephen Hawking with a custom “Happy Birthday” 300mm silicon wafer.
- The new COSMOS Mk IX supercomputer, hosted at the Stephen Hawking Centre for Theoretical Cosmology and part of the UK DiRAC Facility, is based on Intel technology and will help answer fundamental questions about the origin and structure of the universe.
- Intel to sponsor the annual International Conference on Particle Physics and Cosmology - COSMO 2013.
“This is a very special gift for an extraordinary scientist and an extraordinary man,” said Professor Martin Curley, Intel Vice President and Director of Intel Labs Europe, as he presented the award. “Professor Hawking’s ground-breaking scientific contributions and his remarkable resilience are an inspiration to us all.”
Professor Stephen Hawking is Director of Research and Founder of The Centre for Theoretical Cosmology. The Centre’s new supercomputer COSMOS Mk IX, part of the UK DiRAC Facility and built using Intel technology, aims to solve some of the most complex mathematical challengesfacing researchers in cosmological research. It will be used to examine the origins of our universe, to analyse cosmic microwave background data from the Planck satellite, and to study the complexities of the origins of our universe with lattice field theory simulations of non-linear phenomena during the first fractions of a second.
The supercomputer will contribute to answering key questions such as: What happened in the first moments after the Big Bang? What were the primordial seeds that lead to the formation of galaxies, stars, planets and, ultimately people?
COSMOS Mk IX deploys 1,856 Intel Xeon® E5 processors cores, aided by 31 Intel Xeon Phi™ Coprocessors, which together generate a peak theoretical performance of approximately 75 TFLOPS (Tera Floating-point Operations Per Second).
“We have a long standing relationship with Professor Hawking,” said Justin Rattner, Intel Chief Technology Officer and Managing Director of Intel Labs. “We are very pleased to continue to support the work of the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology and to work closely with Professor Hawking on improving his personal communication system.”
The silicon wafer was presented to Professor Hawking as a follow-up to the State of the Universe symposium, held to celebrate his 70
Intel also announced its sponsorship for the COSMO 2013 International Conference on Particle Physics and Cosmology, to be held in Cambridge on September 2-6, 2013. A series of high-profile speakers,are scheduled to attend, and Professor Hawking, Professor Brian Cox and Professor David Spergel will give public lectures at the event.
 Professor Martin Curley hands over Intel's special present to Professor Stephen Hawking. |  In front of the COSMOS Mk IX supercomputer: Left to right: David Fleming, Technology Director, Intel Labs Europe; Eugene Lim, Lecturer Cambridge; Ulrich Sperhake, Lecturer Cambridge; Martin Curley, Vice President and Director of Intel Labs Europe, Professor Paul Shellard, Director, Centre for Theoretical Cosmology; Andrey Kaliazin, Cosmos System Manager |
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) is a world leader in computing innovation. The company designs and builds the essential technologies that serve as the foundation for the world’s computing devices. Additional information about Intel is available at newsroom.intel.com and blogs.intel.com.
The CTC was founded by Stephen Hawking in 2007 to advance our mathematical understanding of the Universe. It is part of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics within the University of Cambridge. The CTC website can be found at www.ctc.cam.ac.uk.
You can learn more about the COSMOS@DiRAC supercomputer at www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/cosmos. The DiRAC Facility is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council and the Department of Business Innovation and Skills through its Large Facilities Capital Fund.