IBM's supercomputing R&D for radioastronomy (pictures)

HANOVER, Germany -- The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) radio telescope that will be built from 2016 to 2024 in southern Africa and Australia is intended to peer at the Big Bang's radio remnants. Before that, IBM is working to develop the necessary computing technology through a five-year partnership with the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (Astron). At the CeBIT show here, the two groups are showing off some of the fruits of the cooperation, called Dome.

The SKA radiotelescope project could use phase-change memory chips such as this one for high-speed data storage.