Student Adventures: UK: University of Reading joins computing super-league

The most powerful academic supercomputer in the world has been delivered to the University of Reading. The Advanced Computing and Emerging Technologies Centre (ACET) is at the forefront of computational science and will now also provide the most accurate research into air pollution modelling, climate change, financial modelling, drug discovery, computational biology and meteorology.

Professor Vassil Alexandrov, director of the University's ACET Centre, said; “The possibilities of use for this computer are endless. In addition to the advance of computational science, we will be at the cutting edge, giving more precise pollution predictions, speeding up the design of lifesaving drugs, investigating scenarios in climate change and thus making real changes to people's well being.”

The supercomputer is part of an expansion of the university’s research collaboration with IBM. Over the past five year, the university has had considerable success with a wide range of collaborative research partnerships, delivering over 1200 projects and strong links with business and industry.

The University of Reading is ranked as one of the UK’s 10 most research-intensive universities and as one of the top 200 universities in the world. Their broad portfolio of full- and part-time degree programmes covers the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences. Based in an area known as the “silicon valley” of the UK, the university is located a short 30 minute train journey from London’s Paddington station.

Amongst many achievements, the University of Reading was awarded the Queen’s anniversary prize for higher education in 2006. It enjoys a world-class reputation for teaching, research and enterprise.

To find out more about studying at the University of Reading, contact a StudyLink counsellor today.