The European Union is moving to build a high-performance
computing industry to challenge US dominance, but it doesn't
want to play catch-up. It wants to leapfrog and it is seeing
whether ARM Holdings technology can give it that edge. The
Barcelona Supercomputing Centre is using the ARM-based Samsung
Exynos 5 Dual processor to build a supercomputer. It's the same
processor that's available in Samsung's new £229 Chromebook. ARM
licenses processor designs to chipmakers, and the chip produced
by Samsung for the Chromebook is a good first iteration to what
the Barcelona centre ultimately wants to see in this chip. The
initial goal is to build a supercomputer that's just large
enough to squeak on to the Top 500 list of the world's most
powerful supercomputers by the end of next year. It will serve
as a prototype. "What we want to prove is that one can build an
HPC system out of commodity components," said Alex Ramirez, the
research manager for this effort known as the Mont-Blanc
project. The advantage of using chip