Building the Super Computer
Pioneering lab puts GW at the forefront of high-speed computing
Tarek El-Ghazawi may describe his laboratory as a casual place, but there’s no understating its purpose: to create powerfully fast super-computers.
El-Ghazawi, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, directs GW’s High Performance Computer Laboratory (HPCL) on the University’s Virginia campus in Ashburn. A well-known pioneer in his field, El-Ghazawi teaches students to work on cutting-edge computers.
“The High-Performance Computing Laboratory began as our basement-like workshop.” El-Ghazawi says. “HPCL is simply my students, myself, collaborating faculty members and my equipment. It is an informal, yet actual, physical structure and a launching pad for new initiatives.”
High-performance computing and high-performance reconfigurable computing present different challenges for computer engineers. El-Ghazawi and his students tackle both.
High-speed computers run scientific and engineering applications too advanced for standard computers. They have been tapped for everything from global climate modeling to the design of space shuttles. Their simulations of nuclear explosions spare scientists from doing underground testing. And high-speed computers cut the crash simulation of an automobile from days to hours and the production time for animation movies from years to months.
Unlike standard computing, reconfigurable computing relies on changes to the computer hardware, rather than software, to perform different tasks.
“DNA matching and protein sequencing require the kind of computer power that high-performance reconfigurable computing can provide,” El-Ghazawi explains. “Security is another area with lots of potential applications—for example, in things like breaking a cipher.”
El-Ghazawi and his high-profile lab offer GW students unprecedented access to science and skills of the future.
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