September marked the launch of Philip, the University’s latest $215,000 addition to the supercomputing cluster located in the Frey Computing Services Center.The cluster, a joint effort between the Center for Computation & Technology and Information Technology Services, is in response to technological advances in supercomputing and increased user request from researchers in fields like biological sciences, material sciences and mathematics, said CCT public relations manager Kristen Sunde.The supercomputers are traditionally used for physics, chemistry and engineering research, Sunde said, and they harness the power of several desktop computers.”As supercomputing is becoming more and more available, you’re starting to see other disciplines that maybe wouldn’t have accessed them before,” Sunde said. Philip was purchased with funds from the CCT budget, Sunde said. Philip will join Tezpur  — a super computer that came to the University in 2006 and began operations in 2007, Sunde said.The supercomputing facilities are accessible to faculty, especially research faculty.Students can request use of Philip if their research is supervised by a faculty member. Miriam Konkel, biological sciences post-doctoral researcher, said she uses the supercomputing services provided in Frey for her gene analysis research on a weekly basis.”It’s really, really useful to have a new supercomputer here,” Konkel said. “Without the supercomputers our research would — for the most part — not be possible.”The need for supercomputing increases for genome comparison purposes as genetics moves into gene analysis, Konkel said. Randall Hall, chemistry professor, said he has used supercomputing in the past to aid his efforts in computational chemistry research. While he has not used Philip and has no immediate plans to use it, he said the supercomputer is a helpful addition to the University.He said Philip provides more memory than the supercomputers already used by the University.Technological advances in supercomputing afford an increasing number of fields to utilize it, Sunde said. “As the machines are becoming more powerful … it allows them to do things that they frankly wouldn’t be able to do otherwise,” Sunde said. “They need to access a cluster.”—-Contact Lindsey Meaux at [email protected]