Initially attracted to Daresbury SIC by the presence of the HPCx
supercomputer at Daresbury Laboratory, IBM established an office to act as a hub for
activities in the area. This is mainly utilised by members of the
IBM Strategic Growth Business Unit. Activity ranges from algorithm
development in digital media to large scale scientific
computing problems. The team is also looking at new technologies
coming out of IBM Research laboratories and how these relate to new
areas of business - one such technology being 'Cell' - a new
processor used in the Sony Play Station 3. IBM is looking at how to
deploy this in other areas such as medical scanners - a key focus
of activity with other Daresbury SIC companies. Being based
at Daresbury SIC also provides physical proximity to the next
generation supercomputer 'Blue Gene', recently installed at the Laboratory.