SMU announces name for new supercomputer: ManeFrame

DALLAS (SMU) – SMU unveiled its new supercomputer, the ManeFrame, during ceremonies March 19, and award a Dell laptop computer to the student who named it, sophomore Chase Leinberger.

At the ManeFrame ceremony were (l. to r.) SMU President R. Gerald Turner; James E. Quick, Dean of Research and Graduate Studies; Chase Harker, finalist in the naming competition; Chase Leinberger, suggested the winning name; and Paul Ludden, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs.

SMU now has one of the top academic supercomputers in the nation with the addition of the ManeFrame to its new data center at the southeastern end of the campus.  This powerful new tool will be opened to the campus in May, expanding the reach of faculty and student research into subjects ranging from particle physics, to human behavior, to water quality and drug discovery.

High-performance computing makes it possible for researchers to study complex problems involving massive amounts of data using sophisticated software and step-by-step recipes for calculations. At its peak, ManeFrame is expected to be capable of more than 120 trillion mathematical operations a second.

“High-performance computing has become an indispensible tool in the 21^st century,” said James Quick, SMU Associate Vice President of Research and Dean Graduate Studies.  “The incredible computational power provided by high-performance computing is widely used in science, engineering, business and the arts.  ManeFrame brings this capability to Dallas.”

The new, expanded high-performance computer system was named “ManeFrame” in March in homage to the Mustang mascot. SMU students, faculty and staff selected the name from entries in a contest sponsored by SMU Provost and Vice President Paul W. Ludden.

Related Links:

• The Daily Campus: SMU unveils new supercomputer
• The Dallas Business Journal: The ManeFrame: SMU's new system raises Dallas' supercomputer capabilities