The mapping of the Human Genome in 2000 was one of the most computationally intense programmes ever undertaken, but it will be dwarfed by the needs of the emerging nanotechnology industries. These new materials are expected to have an important impact in areas as diverse as health, engineering, and the environment. However, their development requires calculations and modelling to be done at the molecular level. This, in turn, is forecast to require individual computer systems with sustained performance of 1 PetaFLOP. That is one thousand million million floating point operations per second, meaning that a single system will need the equivalent of twice the total combined performance from the world's current top 500 computer systems.

Indications are that that performance barrier has been successfully addressed by Bristol-based company, ClearSpeed Technology. ClearSpeed's first chip, the CS301, addresses both performance and power efficiency to deliver up to a 70x increase in performance per watt, a level of increase that enables new levels of compute density. Will Strauss, an industry analyst, described ClearSpeed's first 32-bit chip as a "breakthrough", andMicroprocessor Reportstated that ClearSpeed's announcement of this first chip "caused a frenzy".

The Exceptional Research and Development Grant will enable ClearSpeed to develop a 64-bit processor that will take high performance computing to a new level. The processor aims to overcome the traditional barriers of high performance computing performance which are power supply and cooling requirements.

Government Minister Nigel Griffiths stated: "This is great news for ClearSpeed, the South West region and the UK nanotechnology industry as a whole. The 64-bit processor is a tremendous project and is typical of the hi-tech innovation for which the DTI is delighted to provide grant support. This product has the potential to make the UK an international centre of excellence in this field and will enable sectors that rely on high performance computing, such as biotechnology and the aircraft industry, to take science and technological development to a whole new level."

Tom Beese, CEO of ClearSpeed Technology, stated: "We are delighted that the DTI has awarded us this grant. It will allow us to take our exciting technology forward and deliver the high performance and power efficiency needed to make the UK a world class centre for nanotechnology development."