Lesson plan

SiCortex

SiCortex was a supercomputer manufacturer founded in 2003 and headquartered in Clock Tower Place, Maynard, Massachusetts. On 27 May 2009, HPCwire reported that the company had shut down its operations, laid off most of its staff, and is seeking a buyer for its assets. The Register reported that Gerbsman Partners was hired to sell SiCortex's intellectual properties. While SiCortex had some sales, selling at least 75 prototype supercomputers to several large customers, the company had never produced an operating profit and ran out of venture capital. New funding could not be found. The company built and marketed a family of clusters of between 12 and 972 compute nodes, connected in a Kautz graph. The clusters are the SC5832, SC648 and SC072. It was reported that the company has been working on the next generation of clusters since March 2009, but development ceased when operations were closed. The SC5832 is a high-end model housed in a cabinet. It has 972 nodes, 5,832 cores and 972 to 7,776 GB of memory. It uses a diameter-6 Kautz graph for 2,916 links. The SC648 is a mid-range model housed in a standard 19-inch rack. Each rack may contain two systems. It has 108 nodes, 648 cores and 108 to 864 GB of memory. It uses a diameter-4 Kautz graph for 324 links. The SC072 is a desktop model for developing software.…

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Article summary

SiCortex was a supercomputer manufacturer founded in 2003 and headquartered in Clock Tower Place, Maynard, Massachusetts. On 27 May 2009, HPCwire reported that the company had shut down its operations, laid off most of its staff, and is seeking a buyer for its assets. The Register reported that Gerbsman Partners was hired to sell SiCortex's intellectual properties. While SiCortex had some sales, selling at least 75 prototype supercomputers to several large customers, the company had never produced an operating profit and ran out of venture capital. New funding could not be found. The company built and marketed a family of clusters of between 12 and 972 compute nodes, connected in a Kautz graph. The clusters are the SC5832, SC648 and SC072. It was reported that the company has been working on the next generation of clusters since March 2009, but development ceased when operations were closed. The SC5832 is a high-end model housed in a cabinet. It has 972 nodes, 5,832 cores and 972 to 7,776 GB of memory. It uses a diameter-6 Kautz graph for 2,916 links. The SC648 is a mid-range model housed in a standard 19-inch rack. Each rack may contain two systems. It has 108 nodes, 648 cores and 108 to 864 GB of memory. It uses a diameter-4 Kautz graph for 324 links. The SC072 is a desktop model for developing software.…

Key claims

  1. date of foundation: 2003 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95

Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. The record states that the date of foundation is "2003". What evidence would count against this claim?
  3. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  4. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

  1. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1356680539

Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.