The University is home to what is said to be one of the most powerful computers in the world, but many people's knowledge ends there.

A supercomputer, also called a cluster, is actually a bunch of connected smaller computers that are slightly more powerful than most personal computers. Each computer in a cluster has about 12 gigabytes of memory, said Mike Showerman, systems administrator for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).

By comparison, Dell Computers' Web site said the maximum memory available on one of its personal computers was 2 gigabytes of memory.

Trish Barker, spokeswoman for the NCSA, said the supercomputer cluster room consists of a room filled with refrigerator-sized black boxes stacked on metal racks. She said the center buys hundreds of servers and uses them to work as one machine, creating the clusters.

There are currently four other supercomputer sites: the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California, Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois, the NCSA for Advanced Computing Research at the California Institute of Technology in California, and the Pittsburgh Supercomputer NCSA in Pennsylvania.

In 2001, the various sites started planning a more powerful, unified computer network — the TeraGrid. According to the NCSA's Web site, the TeraGrid will be the world's largest, fastest infrastructure for open scientific research. Barker said the sites are still working to make their systems compatible with each other, but there was a lot of work to be done to get the computers to work seamlessly together.

"(The TeraGrid) will allow researchers to move forward at a much faster pace," Showerman said.

Researchers can go to the NCSA to get help when they are working on extremely large, complex calculations. The TeraGrid would make this process easier for researchers, said Showerman.

"They may not have the resources, so the idea behind the TeraGrid is to make that kind of power available to more researchers," Barker said.

Todd Martinez, an associate chemistry professor, said his research team could benefit from the TeraGrid.

Martinez leads a research team in trying to find out how light interacts with molecules. He said the team wants to build molecular machines that can be triggered by light. The project can be paralleled to building a solar-powered car on a molecular level.

"Calculations that involve correct and detailed treatment of electrons and atoms are extraordinarily demanding," he said. "The computing time required to solve these (calculations) is not currently possible, but could become possible with the TeraGrid."

Even with a computer's help, researchers can only approximate answers for electron and atom behavior in molecules. But the TeraGrid would provide detailed, exact answers for these equations that might involve thousands of electrons or atoms. This amount would still be too small for humans to calculate, Martinez said.

"Electron behavior in molecules is essentially what chemistry is," he said. "Computing is going to help you know how to build the molecules you want to, what you would use (to build them) and the principles involved, all on the molecular scale."

Researchers must travel to a supercomputing site to use its services right now, but with the TeraGrid they could work from their own labs.

Showerman compared the TeraGrid concept to cell phone roaming; cell phones work without individual users understanding the different towers and satellite connections involved. In the same way, researchers could use the TeraGrid's computing power without understanding the mechanical details.

Showerman said the NCSA expects the TeraGrid to be available to researchers through grants by next year, and as the TeraGrid process continues and expands, the unification between sites becomes more important than each site's systems.

"The TeraGrid is more than the sum of its parts," Barker said. "The idea is to get different sites to work together, to take it to the next level."

Barker said the TeraGrid could help researchers understand the way proteins work, create new pharmaceutical drugs, find cures for human and animal diseases, and understand gene sequencing.

Barker said supercomputer users must use logins and passwords to gain access to the systems and people who enter the Advanced Computation Building in Urbana, where the supercomputer is kept, must show proper identification or be granted access by an employee.

Barker said the organization received funding this summer to launch a national center to research and establish more secure systems. She said the NCSA is currently researching ways to make military communication more secure.