IT-Online SKA bid a step closer, Thursday, 17 June 2010, 11:39
Here is an article about the SKA with a little gem at the end - it appears that the CHPC - after all that - is nothing more than a processing node for KAT.

Tellumat has completed the feed cluster sub-assemblies for the KAT 7 radio telescope that is currently being erected at Carnarvon in the Northern Cape.

The units, destined for each of the KAT 7 array’s seven telescopes, will receive and amplify data captured in the form of radio frequency (RF) emissions from celestial bodies. Tellumat’s delivery to KAT 7 also includes software to process the data, allowing for a close study of the cosmos.
The KAT 7, whose construction was commissioned by the Department of Science and Technology, could ultimately lead to South Africa winning the right to host the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). Four countries bid for the privilege, which will bestow immense scientific prestige on the victor, but only South Africa and Australia remain in the running.

The new Top 500 has been updated. (06/2010) The CHPC's machine is now ranked 461, RMax=25440.00 GFlop, RPeak=30860.80 GFlop and efficiency 82.43%. The CHPC was ranked 128 in Nov 2008 (with a Blue Gene/P Solution, RMax=23415.00 GFlop, RPeak=27850.00 and efficiency 84.08 )and 311 in Nov 2009 with the current system (Tsessebe, SunBlade X6275 and X6250, Xeon X5570 and E5450, Infiniband QDR/DDR).

I am wondering what the plan is now? With all this capacity built surely something should happen?

BBC News
By Jonathan Fildes Technology reporter, 8:09 GMT, Monday, 31 May 2010 9:09 UK

China aims to be become supercomputer superpower
China is ramping up efforts to become the world's supercomputing superpower.

Its Nebulae machine at the National Super Computer Center in Shenzhen, was ranked second on the biannual Top 500 supercomputer list.

For the first time, a second Chinese supercomputer appears in the list of the top ten fastest machines.

However, the US still dominates the list with seven of the top ten computers, including the world's fastest, known as Jaguar.

The Cray computer, which is owned by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, has a top speed of 1.75 petaflops.

One petaflop is the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.

From DDJ@techwebnewsletters.com:

You just never know when a smattering of partial differential equations or harmonic analysis will come in handy. At least, that's what a pair of University of Pennsylvania mathematicians discovered, unraveling in the process the solution to a 140-year-old, 7-dimensional equation that's stumped mathematicians for more than a century.

HPCwire:
April 07, 2010

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, April 7 -- The first-ever feature-length 3D animation film to come out of South Africa, "Lion of Judah", hits local screens later this year -- and it owes its existence to a massive bank of supercomputers that are working overtime to finalise the movie for our screens.

The movie, created at local animation studio Character Matters, is in final production with the assistance of the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) in Cape Town.

HPCwire April 13, 2010, by Michael Feldman, HPCwire Editor

The 21st century has seen a plethora of supercomputing centers sprouting up across the globe. While the US, Western Europe, and Japan are still the dominant HPC territories, rapidly developing countries such as China, India, Brazil, Russia, and Saudi Arabia are quickly ramping up their HPC infrastructures. Of all the regions, though, Africa is still mostly an HPC desert. But in Cape Town, South Africa, the three-year-old Center for High Performance Computing (CHPC) aims to change all that.

Funded by South Africa's Department of Science and Technology (DST), CHPC is tasked with providing high-end computational resources for research organizations and businesses in South Africa and throughout Africa. Since it opened its doors in June 2007, CHPC, under the direction of Dr. Happy Sithole, has been busy building up its HPC infrastructure and gathering users. Because it is a regional HPC center -- essentially covering a whole continent -- its resources have to serve a wide array of clients and applications.

IT-Online Monday, 19 April 2010, 11:29

In just a few weeks time, four of South Africa’s young scientists will be jetting off to the US to represent South Africa at the 2010 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) which is taking place from 11 to 14 May.

Good for Eskom ...

And now for something completely different - only it is not.
ITWeb records more of the same-old-same-old ... (By Audra Mahlong, senior journalist, Johannesburg, 3 Mar 2010)

Local technology companies can expect increased access to procurement opportunities as the Department of Science and Technology (DST) attempts to boost local industries.

ITWeb has "SA's second satellite delivers", By Farzana Rasool, ITWeb journalist, Johannesburg, 24 Feb 2010

Sumbandila Images [The Bridle Drift Dam in East London as pictured by Sumbandila, South Africa's second satellite.]

SA received the first live images from its second satellite, Sumbandila, this week.

SA's progression into space started over a decade ago and the country expects to make further strides in this area, says Lunga Ngqengelele, acting head of communications for the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

These images represent just the first development expected from the satellite, adds Ngqengelele.

This is beautiful! Fantastic. Wonderful. I wish we could see the images in high-res!