Blue Gene to help Philippines get better, earlier weather forecasts

QUEZON CITY, May 17 ---- Stars are falling in the Philippines.

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.

  

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.