IBM Supercomputer

[cardude2004]

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=159905586
http://news.google.com/nwshp?gl=us&ncl=http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml%3FarticleID%3D159905586&hl=en

IBM supercomputer sets another speed record

Aaron Ricadela, InformationWeek
(03/24/2005 4:31 PM EST)

MANHASSET, N.Y. — An IBM supercomputer clocked as the world's fastest has surpassed its own speed record, the Energy Department reported Thursday (March 24). IBM's Blue Gene/L, being assembled for the department's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, performed 135.3 trillion floating point operations per second running benchmark software, the National Nuclear Security Administration said. The result eclipses the 70.72 teraflops that a smaller version of the system achieved running the Linpack benchmark program last fall.

Blue Gene, being assembled for the NNSA for simulating the performance and safety of nuclear weapons and other applications, became the world's fastest supercomputer last September, surpassing a Japanese government-funded system. The version of Blue Gene being assembled for the Livermore lab is about half its eventual size of 131,072 processors. IBM's design allows for extremely fast computational performance in a machine that takes up less space than traditional supercomputers, and consumes less power. The full-sized version of Blue Gene at Livermore is expected to be operational in June or July. IBM's supercomputer got its name from its application for running computer simulations of biological processes. IBM has supplied other organizations, including a Japanese biology lab and the European particle physics lab CERN, with access to the technology.

IBM Supercomputer.

 

[skip0110]

Awesome. I wonder how much a processor-hour costs on that machine?

 

[donbenni]

Cool. For how long though? Hope they test out a few Chaos theories with it.

 

[cardude2004]

Awesome. I wonder how much a processor-hour costs on that machine?

I don't know. I also wonder what the electricity for that machine costs.

 

[Giancarlo]

What exactly does it mean?

 

[Ev0]

And in 5 years we will be laughing at the time when we thought this computer was fast...

 

[cardude2004]

What exactly does it mean?

What are you asking us to define? What are you asking about, or what is IT?

 

[donbenni]

What exactly does it mean?

IBM have created a stupidly large/powerful computer that will be used for 'simulating the performance and safety of nuclear weapons' plus other things that only supercomputers can do... like print out pi to however million decimal places the controller is feeling like on that specific day.

 

[Event]

They should teach it chess, like Deep Blue. Then maybe Deep Blue and Blue Gene can have a game! 👍

 

[Ev0]

Blue Gene would pwn Deep Blue at chess!

 

[Geeky1]

...should run F@H on it...

 

[cardude2004]

They should teach it chess, like Deep Blue. Then maybe Deep Blue and Blue Gene can have a game! 👍

I can't believe that a computer beat the first person at chess in like 1997. I thought the computers before that time were more powerful and could have beat a person in chess. The computers that I used before 1997 seemed so powerful to me, I thought that it could easily beat a person in chess.

Here is what the Blue Gene was designed for -
http://www.research.ibm.com/bluegene/
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%2Bblue+gene
http://www.top500.org/sublist/System.php?id=7101

Deep Blue -
http://www.research.ibm.com/deepblue/
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%2Bdeep+blue

List of Supercomputers -
http://www.top500.org/lists/plists.php?Y=2004&M=11http://www.top500.org/lists/2004/11/index.php
http://www.top500.org/
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=TOP500+List+of+Supercomputers+
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%2Bsupercomputer
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=TOP+500+List+of+Supercomputers+&spell=1

 

[Geeky1]

Afraid not dude. Even the fastest supercomputer today can't match the processing power of even an insect's brain. The reason such a slow computer managed to beat a human at all is because the computer in question was a highly specialized machine.

 

[cardude2004]

Afraid not dude. Even the fastest supercomputer today can't match the processing power of even an insect's brain. The reason such a slow computer managed to beat a human at all is because the computer in question was a highly specialized machine.

I realize that now, but I used to think computers were so much more powerful than a person. I realize now that they do pretty much whatever you tell them to do.

 

[The Ernster]

Hmm, I wonder how that handles solitaire?

 

[cardude2004]

Hmm, I wonder how that handles solitaire?

I am sure that you wouldn't be able to see the cars shuffle at the end of the game, when you win, if you played solitaire on it. It would be neat to use one of these.

 

[Super Jamie]

And in 5 years we will be laughing at the time when we thought this computer was fast...

pretty much

interesting that it only took them 12 months to almost double its performance. if i had cpu time on it, i'd get it emulating NES

 

[Ev0]

OMFG! TETRIS @ 135 TERAFLOPS!!!!!!11