Spain plans second largest supercomputer

UPI ^ | 2-28-04

[Indy Pendance]

CATALONIA, Spain, Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Spain announced plans Saturday to build the world's second most powerful computer, the BBC reported.

The supercomputer will be at the heart of a center to research climate change, medicine and industrial design. The system will be able to process 40 teraflops -- 40 trillion calculations per second, equivalent to the processing power of 18,000 personal computers, the BBC said.

The new center will be located in the northeast region of Catalonia, the high-tech hub of Spain. It's construction will need an investment of 70 million euros, or $87 million.

Still reigning as the world's fastest computer is the Earth Simulator, created by NEC in Yokohama, Japan. The Earth Simulator is dedicated to climate modelling and simulating seismic activity.

The Spanish computer will be built over four years by IBM, and use the Linux operating system, the government said in a news conference.

[Indy Pendance]

.

[non-anonymous]

The system will be able to process 40 teraflops

Finally, something to interpret the complexities of John F. Kerry.

Oh wait, nevermind. I thought it said teraflipflops.

[livius]

The Spanish are doing a lot of computer-based research in linguistics (I'm a translator, hence my interest). They have some sort of huge computer system in Barcelona processing a corpus of texts of billions of words.

[Blue Screen of Death]

If it was our government, they would build this monster then hook it up to a 56K dial up modem.

[FormerACLUmember]

Please Note: Our brave and generous Spanish allies in the War on the Terror have just made a major purchase from an American company. They deserve our gratitude. If I can make a suggestion, start with tourism. You will really enjoy yourself in Spain.

I hiked across the rugged Pyrenees Mountains last summer, from the Altantic Ocean to the Merditerrean Sea in Catalonia. I can assure you it was magnificent. People are great there.

[dayton law dude]

Being somewhat of a closeted "tech junkie," this article actually really interested me. And I like their choice for an OS platform as well. I wish I could actually find more programs that were Linux-compatable, because it really is a fun OS to work with. Sadly I am stuck with good ol' Microsoft XP, which gives me troubles daily. (Knew I should have gone with a G4 instead of a Gateway ;-] )

[fish hawk]

Colossus: The Forbin Project?

[aviator]

Four years??????????

They could do it in four months with G5 Macintosh computers!!!!!!!

[Straight Vermonter]

What?

[punster]

"The system will be able to process 40 teraflops

Finally, something to interpret the complexities of John F. Kerry.

Oh wait, nevermind. I thought it said teraflipflops."

I heard that Teresa Heinz was looking for a model with a hard drive.

She found out that all Kerry has is a floppy.

[SedVictaCatoni]

Virginia Tech just built the "Big Mac", the third-most-powerful supercomputer in the world, out of Macintosh G5 computers, for peanuts.

[tcuoohjohn]

There is a distinction between linear/ sequential calculations and parallel processing. If you try to parallel process fibonacci sequences the problem becomes apparent immediately.

[Bush2000]

Virginia Tech just built the "Big Mac", the third-most-powerful supercomputer in the world, out of Macintosh G5 computers, for peanuts.

Peanuts?!? Not at Apple prices.

[SedVictaCatoni]

Peanuts?!? Not at Apple prices.

The Big Mac cost $5.2 million. The computer it succeeded as the third-most-powerful cost approximately $12 million. In addition, the Big Mac, despite being a cluster of 2,200 processors, took little more than a month to construct.

Search around on Google if you're interested. The Big Mac was all over the industry press around October and November of last year.

[Cacique]

bttfl

[Bush2000]

The Big Mac cost $5.2 million. The computer it succeeded as the third-most-powerful cost approximately $12 million. In addition, the Big Mac, despite being a cluster of 2,200 processors, took little more than a month to construct. Search around on Google if you're interested. The Big Mac was all over the industry press around October and November of last year.

Tell me: Did those Macs include an OS? Or was that free?

[SedVictaCatoni]

Tell me: Did those Macs include an OS? Or was that free?

The Big Mac runs OS X, which came with the machines.

[RightWhale]

to build the world's second most powerful computer

Is that like running for vice president?