High-speed network to link research units here and overseas
The grid will run at 1Gbps and link local researchers within Singapore as well as with those in the US, Britain and Japan
25 August 2003

A SUPER-FAST computing network that connects research institutes here and abroad will be humming into action in three months.

Called the National Grid Pilot Project, the link, at 1Gbps (gigabit per second), is 10 times faster than anything currently available here, said Associate Professor Francis Lee Bu Sung, an expert in the field and a member of the task force set up to make the grid a reality.

By comparison, a typical home dial-up connection runs at 56kbps, or 56,000 bits of information per second, which is about 20,000 times slower than the national network.

"Most of the components are in place. We just need to get it going, and it will be up and running within three months," Prof Lee told The Straits Times.

Creating the network involves linking the existing hardware in the various institutions through fibre optic cables.

Prof Lee, head of Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) division of computer communications, explained that the grid's supercomputing power will enable it to do anything from providing huge amounts of power for complex calculations, to mining mountains of data emerging from genetics research.

Both NTU and the National University of Singapore have developed expertise in the area over the years.

For example, researchers are already using software to break down information into digestable portions that computers can sift through quickly, before recombining the parts into a meaningful report.

Other software allows users to submit problems they want to work on, before automatically gathering the necessary computing power for the task.

Within Singapore, the national network will link NTU, NUS, the Institute of High Performance Computing and one-north - the upcoming research and development hub in Buona Vista.

Researchers in the United States, Japan and Britain are already joining forces with Singapore.

By linking their own grid networks with the one here, they can split the load of computing resources, as well as share information faster.

Assistant Professor Ong Yew Soon, who is from NTU's school of computer engineering, said that the university had already tied up with Britain's University of Southampton to work on complex engineering designs.

These include making aircraft designs more aerodynamic and coming up with air vents which would allow hot air to flow away using the least amount of energy.

Since such designs call for extremely complex physics computations, it made sense to share computing power and software resources, he explained. Other researchers have also expressed interest in becoming part of the grid, including American scientist Craig Venter, widely acknowledged as the man responsible for the swift human genome sequencing achievement.

Dr Venter, who runs three non-profit organisations with about 500 scientists, said recently that he is considering connecting some of his institutions to the grid.

The national grid, although fast by local standards, still lags behind countries like the US, where certain networks used for research can reach speeds 40 times faster (40Gbps).

But, said Prof Lee, the 1Gbps speed was sufficient for now, and computing power would be increased when more projects came on line, thus pooling even more resources.

[Source: The Straits Times, 25 August 2003, Monday]