At the V.M. Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv, installation has been completed of the most powerful supercomputer in the CIS, which has been named SKIT ("supercomputer for the implementation of information technologies"). \n \nIt is intended for solving problems of increased complexity that are beyond the capabilities of conventional computing systems. \n \nThe new supercomputer is a cluster system that unites 64 Intel Itanium server processors. The total performance of the new system and the supercomputer already built at the institute on the basis of 32 Intel Xeon processors will amount to 530 billion operations per second. The software for the new supermachine is in the process of being created, while the computer itself will constantly increase its capacity. \n \nAs reported by the director general of the Cybernetics Center of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, director of the V. Glushkov Institute of Cybernetics, academician of the NAS of Ukraine I. Serhiienko in an interview with the weekly "Dzerkalo Tyzhnia," at present the institute is creating three supercomputers of different capacity at once. "In total, 104 special processors are involved in them, and the capabilities of these computers in solving complex problems can be used (including in online mode) in an integrated manner," the scientist stated. \n\nAs for SKIT, according to I. Serhiienko, this cluster, which is in research operation, is capable of working with peak performance of no less than 270-300 billion operations per second and with the possibility of increasing performance to 2-2.5 trillion operations per second, with a data storage system of 1 billion bytes and the possibility of increasing the volume to 10-15 trillion bytes. \n\nSKIT will help solve problems in the fields of ecology, economics, materials science, the study of biological and chemical processes, space research, where there exists a huge number of variables and corresponding constraints. In short, the supercomputer is indispensable where it is necessary to process huge arrays of information in a short time (for example, photographs arriving from space satellites). According to scientists, SKIT will also help politicians, since with the help of this supermachine it is possible to determine promising paths for restructuring the economy, to carry out the selection of innovative development models, and so on. \n\nUkrainian cyberneticists actively cooperate with colleagues from Russia and Belarus, where the supercomputer "Skif" has been created and is successfully operating. The "Skif K-1000" cluster until now was the most powerful of all computing systems installed on the territory of Russia, the CIS, and Eastern Europe. It is included in the hundred most powerful computers in the world (98th position in the world ranking of supercomputers TOP-500 as of November 2004). Now, possibly, Kyiv's SKIT will push it aside in the ranking. \n\nFounded in 1957 (as the Computing Center of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine), the Institute of Cybernetics conducts the most diverse research. For example, in the field of theory and methods of systems analysis, mathematical modeling, optimization, and artificial intelligence; general theory of control, methods and means of building intelligent control systems of various levels; general theory of computing machines and promising means of computing technology, artificial intelligence. \n\nIt was precisely here that world-renowned scientific schools were created in mathematical cybernetics and the theory of computing machines and systems, programming theory, mathematical modeling, optimization, and systems analysis. In fact, the Kyiv Institute of Cybernetics can quite rightly be considered the birthplace of modern supercomputers - here back in 1979, for the first time in the world, the principle of building a computing system with multiple instruction and data streams was implemented. Later, world-renowned firms (such as IBM) built their supercomputers on the basis of the "Glushkov architecture." \n\nOne should also not forget that it was precisely in Kyiv (in the computing technology laboratory of the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Academy of Sciences of Ukraine) in December 1951 that the MESM, developed under the leadership of academician Serhii Lebedev, was put into operation - the first electronic computing machine in continental Europe. The structural-algorithmic principles of organizing computations laid down in it operate in all subsequent generations of computers. \n\nHowever, past achievements in the development of computers and present possible (if there is enough money) successes in creating intelligent software and supercomputers do not change the generally not very favorable situation with computerization in Ukraine. Thus, according to data from the consulting company GfK-USM, at present, on average across the country, there are up to 14 employees per computer, and more than half of Ukrainian enterprises and organizations manage entirely without computing machines. \n