QUEZON CITY, May 17 ---- Stars are falling in the
Philippines.
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| A replica of IBM Blue Gene https://www.facebook.com/lyndon.plantilla |
Vin Diesel and Sarah
Jessica Parker were here.
So did Aerosmith, Modern English and Alarm.
But is the country ready to roll out the carpet for a supercomputer?
It is not a Korean pop-band: it's Blue Gene, International
Business Machine (IBM)'s powerful
computing machine in the whole of South East Asia to date.
And the machine will take up its residence at the University of
the Philippines-Diliman (UP-Diliman)-National Science Complex probably the same
time around when the Indiana Pacers
battle the Houston Rockets in the Phillippines' first NBA showdown in October down Southern Mega Manila.
"As IBM Blue Gene takes local research to the realm of
high complex, scientific computing...we can use advance weather modeling
software that will assimilate data from satellite, Doppler RADARS and other
advanced weather tools and sensors, including DOST-ASTI automated weather
stations, water-level monitoring sensors, and rain gauges all over the
country," said Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo during the
ceremonial turn-over of the Supercomputer Thursday afternoon.
Secretary Montejo said IBM Blue Gene can help extend the
country's weather forecasting period from three days to seven days.
"Weather information will be more site-specific or area
specific. Using climate change modeling software will come up with better
seasonal forecasts--information very important to our farmers---and for better
water resource management. We can come with improved climate change scenarios,
again, information that is very important to policy-decision makers, "
said Secretary Montejo.
In the Age of Big Data, Montejo said IBM Blue Gene can
process voluminous data available and harness its potential benefits in terms
of information which are applicable to agriculture, healthcare and
bioformatics.
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| Science and Technology Secretary Mario Montejo (third from the left) flanked by UP President Alfredo Pascual and IBM Country Manager Mariels Almeda Winhoffer pose with Blue Gene behind them. |
"The amount of uncertainty will be reduced because of
the tools and the data that will be processed by this Supercomputer," said
Montejo, " this is really poverty alleviation because the hardest hit by
climate change are the poor."
For her part, IBM Philippines President and Country Manager
Mariels Almeda Winhoffer said "this is a direct result from the agreement
between the DOST and IBM in May 2012 to jointly build a Philippine System and
Technology Research and Development Lab to help accelerate national economic
growth."
Winhoffer added that the collaboration is " IBM's
response to President Aquino's call for help to support research and development
projects to enable transformation and progress in the country."
The first priority of IBM and DOST is to figure out how the
IBM Blue Gene will complement the National Operational Assessment of Hazards
(Project NOAH), the country's integrated information system for disaster
mitigation and climate change.
