Excellence: Letting Titan Loose

It's not every day that an $850,000 high-performance computing array gets donated to a university. But in June, that day came to Oral Roberts University.

Of course, it was a day several months in the making. At the suggestion and direction of Professor Stephen Wheat, the College of Science & Engineering has installed what has become known as "Titan," a massive array of computers that is now online and ready to serve all departments of the University.

"It will be used for several departments," says Wheat. "From modeling physical phenomena for chemistry, biology, or mechanical engineering to gene sequencing or gene alignment or material science in researching new materials. We can do radio wave propagation and wi-fi simulation, which is of interest to the College of Theology, or deep learning applications for enhanced business analytics for the College of Business."

Wheat says this is just scratching the surface of what the array can do. Titan—so named as an homage to the mighty previous mascot of ORU—can also benefit the behavioral sciences department by studying the causes of addiction or other departments through study and development of artificial intelligence.

"This tool will not only allow you to step up your game, but it will cause you to," says Wheat. "It enables much broader and much deeper research paths."

"The only limit is the imagination of the individual researchers across the university."

[Note: This article is featured in our Fall 2018 issue of Excellence magazine. To read the complete issue online, go here].