CENTER FOR COMPUTATION & TECHNOLOGY

Louisiana's supercomputer Queen Bee, the centerpiece of the Louisiana Optical Network Initiative, or LONI, is the 23rd most powerful supercomputer in the world. The ranking follows the release of the annual Top500 Supercomputer Sites list this week during the International Supercomputing Conference in Dresden, Germany. Louisiana's Queen Bee is ranked fourth among the supercomputers owned by higher education institutions in the United States. According to LONI Executive Director Charlie McMahon, this ranking gives Louisiana a competitive edge in advancing research through cyberinfrastructure. “We comfortably assumed it would rank in the top 25 worldwide based on early projections, but our standing in higher education is exciting,” remarks Charles McMahon, executive director for LONI, “Our ranking will hopefully help attract and retain top researchers to our universities .” LONI Chief Scientist Ed Seidel said this ranking represents a substantial achievement for the state and the partner universities. “We have worked throughout the past three years to create a network and have developed a system that makes Louisiana one of the most well-connected places in the world,” Seidel said. “With LONI in place and the newly formed LONI Institute, we can capitalize on the state's investments in information technology.” Queen Bee, a 50-teraflops machine located in the state's Information Systems Building in downtown Baton Rouge, is the main computer for LONI, a high-speed, fiber optics network that connects supercomputers at the state's major universities – Louisiana State University, Louisiana Tech University, LSU Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, Southern University, Tulane University, University of Louisiana at Lafayette and University of New Orleans -- allowing greater collaboration on research that produces results faster and with greater accuracy. The network led to the Board of Regents granting six LONI universities funding under the Post-Katrina Support Fund Initiative to create the LONI Institute, a $15 million state-of-the-art research collaborative to facilitate joint applications tackling complex scientific research problems.