The universe in a computer? It's not as silly as it sounds...

Supercomputer vendor SGI has signed a deal with Cambridge University to set up a grid computing network with the power to model the history of the universe.

The project, backed by Cambridge boffin Stephen Hawking, will also use the technology to establish a national UK Cosmology Grid.

It will use technology from Canadian firm Platform Computing as well as SGI and will link up SGI supercomputers in Cambridge, Oxford, Sussex, Manchester, Portsmouth and at the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine.

The grid will be based on six SGI supercomputers, bought for the purpose last year.

Peter Roberts, director of alliances for Platform Computing, said: "With this we are doing something that would have been literally inconceivable without grid technology. Tasks like this one are simply so enormous that they just have to harness all the power they have.

"Grid computing makes sure all the computers are working flat out all the time."

In addition to investigating the early history of the universe, the CosmoGrid will on a day-to-day basis be used to process data from the COBE satellite which measures leftover microwave radiation from the big bang.

Processing this data will help scientists formulate theories that can be confirmed by a much more advanced satellite to be launched in 2007.

Professor Stephen Hawking said this data, and the analysis provided by the grid system, will give unprecedented information about the origin and present state of our universe.

SGI's visualisation tools will allow graphical representations of galaxy formation and the physics of the early universe to be shared by all the universities in real-time.

Platform Computing's software will ensure that tasks are spread across the six supercomputers in the different campuses according to priority and availability of capacity.

Researchers at Cambridge University won't necessarily know they are using spare computing power from the University of Sussex, but the software will allot tasks accordingly.

Roberts claimed projects such as this one represent a step forward for grid computing, proving it could work outside of the enterprise and beyond the firewall. "This is the second generation of grid computing - working between partners who are happy to pool resources," he said.