Community Supercomputer Unveiled In Tulsa

It may be a world-wide first--a Tulsa supercomputer was unveiled Thursday, and it's open to the public.

The computer, usually reserved for big companies, is now available for Oklahoma's universities, businesses and entrepreneurs.

"Personally it's very exciting to get to use something like this, and be able to work on it and have it in my backyard," said George Louthan.

Louthan is the computer scientist in charge of the brand new Tandy Community Supercomputer, located in the Tandy Supercomputing Center in downtown Tulsa.

The most important word in that very long sentence is "community." Theoretically, it's available to anyone in the community.

"We want to be a tech based incubator for small business or start-ups," Louthan said.

6/22/2012 Related Story: Officials Hope Tulsa Supercomputer Will Be Economic Boost

An entrepreneur can save huge amounts of money and time testing and proofing an idea virtually in the supercomputer. Design changes can be made, then retested. It could make the difference in an idea making it to the marketplace.

Tornadoes are on our minds right now. Say you had a product idea that might keep folks safer:

"What you do is, you make the computer pretend to be a tornado," Louthan said.

You can test your idea safely in big storms or small, just by changing the parameters.

The supercomputer is here thanks to a grant from the A.R. and Marylouise Tandy Foundation, and it was unveiled at a big ceremony at One Technology Center. The University of Tulsa, OU and OSU Tulsa, as well as TCC, are the four charter members of the new center, and will have access to the enormous capabilities of this supercomputer.

Perhaps best of all is, so will you and I. It is available to all of us.

The Tandy Supercomputing Center should be processing its first project for OSU Tulsa as soon as next week.