The University officially launched its petascale computing project called Blue Waters. The supercomputer boasts a sustained performance of one petaflop, making it one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world.

At the launch event, held at National Center for Supercomputing Applications building Thursday, Gov. Pat Quinn declared it Blue Waters Supercomputer Day in celebration of the project’s completion. 

Blue Waters offers more advanced computing capabilities for researchers in science and engineering fields than previous supercomputers, said Trish Barker, public affairs coordinator at NCSA. 

“One of the things we’re excited to see over the next few years is who uses the computer and what they do with it, (including) what kinds of things they study and what they accomplish,” Barker said.

Thomas Dunning, director of NCSA, said Blue Waters can help researchers understand and possibly solve problems that have been unsolvable for researchers in various fields. He cited examples like HIV, world hunger and natural disasters.

“Although there are some equations that can be solved analytically, there are far more you can’t solve in a closed form,” Dunning said. “There are some problems that are so difficult that no matter how clever a mathematician you are, you are not going to be able to solve those equations.”

Blue Waters weighs over 683,000 pounds and is housed in its own custom-made room. The computer was built by Cray Inc. and will be primarily funded by the National Science Foundation. 

“It’s really something that sets the University of Illinois apart from other universities that definitely don’t have something of this scale,” Barker said. “It can do quadrillions of calculations every second … With a calculator, that would take you about 32 million years.”

Blue Waters was finished in October and has since gone through several stages of testing. In that time, different researchers have started working with the computer. 

During an early testing period, a project headed by University physics professor Klaus Schulten successfully mapped part of the HIV capsid. This enhanced understanding of how HIV infects human cells and might one day lead to a cure.

“Our systems, when put in the hands of capable scientists and engineers, have the ability to change the world,” said Peter Ungaro, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cray Inc.

Blue Waters was designed and created by a team of more than 80 members and has taken five years and $400 million to complete.

“Today is a special day for our planet,” Quinn said. “It’s amazing what human beings can accomplish when no one worries about who gets the credit.”

Brittany can be reached at [email protected].