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SEPT 8, 2001

PC power fights disease

Singaporean computer buffs have joined forces to create a super-computer to help design genes and proteins

ONE of Singapore's most powerful computers has been created by 130 people here to help researchers in the United States design genes and proteins that may lead to cures for diseases.

The computer's creators are computer buffs - teenagers and adults alike - who have allowed researchers at Stanford University's Genome@Home project to tap into the unused computing power of their home PCs.

When combined, this comes up to about 150 GHz, equivalent to the power of about 300 PCs in one machine.

The Genome@Home project is just one of many 'distributed computing' projects that harness the idle processing power of thousands, even millions, of home PCs connected to the Internet to form virtual super-computers that let researchers complete in days or weeks tasks that would ordinarily take months or years.

Many of the 130 people here taking part in the project, who call themselves Team Singapore, have not met or even spoken to one another - aside from the occasional exchange on an online discussion forum.

Mr Ronnie Tantriady started Team Singapore in March and had initial problems recruiting members. But after the 43-year-old IT manager posted several messages at www.hardwarezone.com, a popular website among computer buffs here, he saw the numbers soaring.

Now, some members, including himself, take the project so seriously that they leave several of their home PCs switched on all the time to allow the computing work to go on non-stop.

'Together, we are a computer force,' he added.

And through their efforts, the team is now the 11th biggest contributor, out of over 800 teams worldwide that are aiding the Stanford cause.

To join the Genome@Home project, users need to download a computer program from genomeathome.stanford.edu

Once installed, the program runs in the background and will not interrupt the user's normal use of his PC, because in most daily operations only 15 per cent of a computer's power is being used.

Research institutions here, like the Institute of High Performance Computing, have participated in similar power-sharing systems with other institutes and universities.

But even with its three super-computers, which combined can work out 80 billion computations in a second, the institute's director of research, Professor Lee Kwok Hong said: 'We have already run out of computing power.'

But instead of tapping into home PCs, the institute has opted to get an even more powerful super-computer. Within the next few months, a single computer more than 10 times more powerful than the trio will be whirring away at the institute.