Dublin - 15 May 2008: As concerns of a global hunger crises mount, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and researchers at the University of Washington today launched a new program to develop stronger strains of rice that could produce crops with larger and more nutritious yields.
With the processing power of 167 teraflops, equivalent to the world's Top 3 supercomputer, IBM's World Community Grid will harness the unused and donated power from nearly one million individual PCs in a new initiative -- "Nutritious Rice for the World" project -- that will study rice at the atomic level and then combine it with traditional cross breeding techniques used by farmers throughout history.
The project can be completed in less than two years as compared to over 200 years using more conventional computer systems.
Full Press Release and video
Additional Links:
ElectricNews.net reports "PC grid to focus on global hunger crisis "
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Irish Developer Network ICT Portal reports - "IBM World Community Grid Supercomputer to Tackle Rice Crisis"
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Silicon Republic reports: Grid computing used to tackle food crisis
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