Science-driven computing speeds up at PNNL

One of the world's fastest scientific computers will be used by a new directorate at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to enable large-scale scientific discoveries. The Computational and Information Sciences Directorate (CISD) integrates computational and information sciences, statistics and mathematics.

A CISD open house, "Onramp to the Future," attracted industry leaders and professionals from universities and government who learned about its world-class scientific and computational resources and how to access them.

A new high-speed fiber-optic network connection from Richland, Wash., to Seattle also was launched last fall. This connection enables the Laboratory to exchange vast amounts of information electronically with research laboratories and universities worldwide. Researchers can transfer data almost 300 times faster than before--sometimes within minutes instead of days.

CISD scientists will apply the power of high-performance computing to contribute to federal science initiatives such as homeland security, defense, and health. Scientists envision new collaborations with other national laboratories and research institutions.