Tufts U Wins Silicon Mechanics HPC Cluster

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 04/08/13
Tufts University's new HPC cluster from Silicon Mechanics includes compnents from NVIDIA, AMD, Kingston Technology, Mellanox Technologies, Supermicro, Seagate, and Bright Computing.
Tufts University's new HPC cluster from Silicon Mechanics includes compnents from NVIDIA, AMD, Kingston Technology, Mellanox Technologies, Supermicro, Seagate, and Bright Computing.

A team of researchers at Tufts University has scored a $78,000 high-performance computing cluster (HPC), thanks to a grant competition sponsored by HPC integrator Silicon Mechanics. A diverse group at the Medford, MA-based institution is being guided by a Tufts professor whose research focuses on how body parts "form, heal, and regenerate."

The multidisciplinary team will use the new cluster to develop the world’s first "automated platform for the systematic discovery of emergent patterning properties from real biological data." Participants include collaborators from Tufts' biology, computer science, biomedical engineering, and mathematics departments, as well as researchers from the Universidad de Sevilla in Spain.

"The interdisciplinary group will use the cluster to develop a new kind of bioinformatics that integrates functional genetic data into a true systems-level understanding of the remarkable mechanisms that enable living beings to build, control, and dynamically repair their bodies," said Tufts Biology Professor Michael Levin. "Running the simulation environment we envisage requires a very high computational cost, which means the project will greatly benefit by the high-performance computer cluster awarded in this grant."

The computer system was granted as part of Silicon Mechanics' second annual "research cluster grant" competition. Last year's cluster went to Saint Louis University, which is using its system for a number of research areas, including aerospace and mechanical engineering, biology, chemistry, and other disciplines.

The latest cluster includes components from Silicon Mechanics, NVIDIA, AMD, Kingston Technology, Mellanox Technologies, Supermicro, Seagate, and Bright Computing. The system has NVIDIA Tesla M2090 GPUs and AMD Opteron 6300 series processors. In fact, one of the criteria for applications was the importance of CPU and GPU technologies to the research. Other scoring looked at the proposal’s research goals, cross-discipline collaboration, and student access to the equipment.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • computer with a red warning icon on its screen, surrounded by digital grids, glowing neural network patterns, and a holographic brain

    Report Highlights Security Risks of Open Source AI

    In these days of rampant ransomware and other cybersecurity exploits, security is paramount to both proprietary and open source AI approaches — and here the open source movement might be susceptible to some inherent drawbacks, such as use of possibly insecure code from unknown sources.

  • The AI Show

    Register for Free to Attend the World's Greatest Show for All Things AI in EDU

    The AI Show @ ASU+GSV, held April 5–7, 2025, at the San Diego Convention Center, is a free event designed to help educators, students, and parents navigate AI's role in education. Featuring hands-on workshops, AI-powered networking, live demos from 125+ EdTech exhibitors, and keynote speakers like Colin Kaepernick and Stevie Van Zandt, the event offers practical insights into AI-driven teaching, learning, and career opportunities. Attendees will gain actionable strategies to integrate AI into classrooms while exploring innovations that promote equity, accessibility, and student success.

  • a professional worker in business casual attire interacting with a large screen displaying a generative AI interface in a modern office

    Study: Generative AI Could Inhibit Critical Thinking

    A new study on how knowledge workers engage in critical thinking found that workers with higher confidence in generative AI technology tend to employ less critical thinking to AI-generated outputs than workers with higher confidence in personal skills.

  • university building with classical columns and a triangular roof displayed on a computer screen, surrounded by minimalist tech elements like circuit lines and abstract digital shapes

    Pima Community College Launches New Portal for a Unified Digital Campus Experience

    Arizona's Pima Community College is elevating the digital campus experience for students, faculty, and staff with a new portal built on the Pathify digital engagement platform.