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Almere (pte047/31.01.2005/15:55) - The Dutch town of Almere is set to play host to the world's very first virtual city supercomputer or computer grid. As the British IT portal http://www.theregister.co.uk reports, "Almeregrid" will mainly rely on home PC's connected to high speed fibre optic links.
A grid is a hyper network, which links computers and data storage owned by different organisations, so that they can share computing power. Sometimes, home PC's are used to donate spare computing power. An example of this is SETI@home, which uses Internet connected computers in the search for extra terrestrial intelligence. A screen saver analyses radio telescope data when the PC is idle. The Almeregrid project will target around 2,200 inhabitants in Almere that have access to fast (100MB/s) fibre optic connections, enabling them to share more data.
The town of Almere is in the southern part of the Dutch province of Flevoland. As the Register reports, this part of Holland was still under water a little over 40 years ago. The reclaimed land provided space for the construction of a brand new town with modern communications technology, including domestic fibre optic connections. The grid will be used for scientific research initially, such as in the area of medical applications. According to project co-ordinators, corporations can later tap into "a wealth of computer power."
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