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The world's highest-speed computer network, Europe's
GEANT, is linking up with others worldwide to create a global
research network, according to the European Commission.
GEANT, the world's largest
computer network dedicated to research and education, already links
researchers from Reykjavik to Vladivostok.
Now high-sepeed links will be
established with similar research systems in Asia, Latin America and
southern Africa, as well as the Balkans, the Black Sea and
Mediterranean regions, with help from European funding, the EU's
executive arm said.
"With GEANT's massive data
processing capacity, Europe can now bring together the best minds in
the world to tackle the challenges that we all face," enthused
EU Information and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding.
GEANT was launched in 2000 and is
jointly funded by Brussels and participating nations.
The commission also announced a
further 90 million euros (136 million dollars) in funding for the
project up to 2012.
The network already boasts a
total of 50,000 kilometres of super-fast 'dark' fibre-optic
connections linked to hybrid networking technology, allowing for 320
gigabits of information to stream through per second.
It serves some 30 million users
in over 3,500 universities and research centres and connects 34
national research networks.
In a statement, the commission
praised the GEANT project as providing "huge technological
advances for big science," including EXPReS, an EU radio
astronomy project which links the world's largest radio telescopes
in China, Europe, South Africa and Chile to a supercomputer in the
Netherlands which produces real-time imaging.
 --AFP
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