Intel is pushing into exascale computing by writing a $125 million cheque for InfiniBand patents.

Chipzilla not only bought the InfiniBand IP but seems to have hired the people who run it  from networking processor and software maker QLogic. Qlogic makes Fibre Channel switches, routers, adapters, and ASICs. InfiniBand was a a low-latency, high-bandwidth system interconnect standard that could push  high-speed data over hort distances.

It was designed to be shoved into a data centre or connect two data centres which were geographically close.  The technology could turn a datacentre into one big supercomputer. InfiniBand is used in several enterprise products from companies such as Oracle, Biggish Blue and EMC Isilon.

Exascale computing is supposed to be the next big thing for Supercomputers.  It refers to computing capabilities beyond the currently existing petascale. If Intel manages it, exascale computing would represent a thousandfold increase.