King’s College mathematicians are Apple grid pioneers

Profiles in Success: King’s College

Mathematicians at King’s College London are using Apple technology to pioneer the use of grid computing and explore the mysteries of the financial world. A new Centre for Financial Grid Computing has been opened at the College with an award from the Apple Research & Technology Support programme — which backs important research across Europe. Apple’s grid computing solution will help improve financial valuation and risk assessment, benefiting mortgage and pension holders as well as financial institutions.

“Many financial calculations are based on millions of simulations, complex partial differential equations, or extensive searches of configurations, requiring enormous and costly computer processing”, says Professor William Shaw, Professor of Financial Mathematics at King’s College.

“Apple’s cost-effective, multi-core desktop and server machines open up new opportunities, based on a grid where each node is capable of doing advanced mathematics. Apple’s support now is critical to making this project work”.

King’s College London is one of the oldest and largest colleges of the University of London, with some 13,000 undergraduate students and 6,200 graduates in nine schools of study. The College is highly respected internationally for its research excellence.

Mathematics has been a leading area of study at King’s College throughout its history, and its first Professor of Mathematics was appointed in 1830. Today, the Department of Mathematics is based in the School of Physical Sciences and Engineering, which also offers degree programmes and course modules in computer science.

Vital to world finance

The Financial Mathematics Research Group was formed within the Department of Mathematics in 2000, in response to a flourishing new area of study. The principles and techniques of quantitative finance are seen increasingly as vital to the functioning of the world’s financial institutions, particularly in relation to trading, asset management and risk control of complicated financial positions.

Recognising the potential of a computational approach to financial mathematics, Professor Shaw and his team developed a blueprint for a Centre for Financial Grid Computing. They planned a groundbreaking approach to grid computing by combining the functionality of advanced mathematical software with the processing power of multiple processors.

“Grid computing in the past has usually been about crunching numbers for many instances of a few simple tasks”, explains Professor Shaw. “We wanted to introduce the capabilities of a ‘mathematician’ by having sophisticated software on each processor, able to do calculus, differentiation, and integration — and still have the processing power to simulate many millions or billions of configurations”.

The Apple Research & Technology Support (ARTS) programme is designed to help Europe’s young scientists and mathematicians achieve their research goals, by giving them the best tools for the task. Professor Shaw was awarded an ARTS Laureate, entitling his computing grid project to receive US$30,000 worth of Apple solutions, in the form of hardware, software and support. Professor Shaw and his team chose six Apple Mac Pro computers, with 8-core processing power — effectively 48 processors.

To complete the research project’s model of financial grid computing, each processor in the Apple grid is loaded with a gridMathematica kernel, software from Wolfram Research. This will reduce pen and paper calculations, and eliminate the need for programming and therefore errors, according to Professor Shaw.

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