IBM Breaks Own Supercomputer Record: 133 Trillion instructions per second.

Betanews ^ | March 24, 2005 | David Worthington,

[Next_Time_NJ]

IBM has one-upped itself. Big Blue has revealed that it has broken through the 100 teraflop mark and developed the world's fastest supercomputer for the United States National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

The system is a derivative of IBM's BlueGene/L supercomputer, which won the supercomputing crown back from NEC's Earth Simulator. The NNSA machine is used to simulate nuclear tests as part of an ongoing maintenance program for the U.S. nuclear stockpile.

[SengirV]

Why does that have to be an Apple thing? Was this system built in 3 months with a budget of $3mill? I don't think so.

Some reading material for you. Just poke around the site a bit - http://www.top500.org/sublist/System.php?id=7286

[grey_whiskers]

Aye, theoretical top performance can be quite different from sustained performance on real-world problems.

Partitioning your data grid can be a pain, as well as the issues of communication latency.

Full Disclosure: NEC Earth Simulator is still vector-based.

Second disclosure: For "embarassingly parallel" or "near embarassingly parallel" (Monte Carlo, massive searches, among others) the Blue Gene type is the way to go. But there was just something so--classy--about the Cray chassis.

Cheers!

[ProudVet77]

What are the practical implications?
The trick is in the definition of practical. If it's home use, none, although you will see it in 10 year or so. But these are the kind of systems we use for national defense. They help design aircraft like the F-22 and what is coming beyond. They track every ship in the ocean and every plane in the air. They can simulate a nuclear weapon without exploding one. I can tell you as a semiconductor geek, they can reduce time from concept to delivery by years.
Yes, they matter.

[Next_Time_NJ]

They said the same thing about the first hard drive. Why would anyone need such a huge amount of space? We will look back on this power in 10 years and laugh.

[Next_Time_NJ]

Yes.. Gigaflops.. my typo...

[TrueKnightGalahad]

Is this faster than my 400MHZ?

Sure it is, if they're APPLE MHz -- the fastest MHz in zee universe!

[Petronski]

I bet that thing could get Linux to boot in under an hour!

[garjog]

Maybe with super computer power a PC could detect the movement of a users eyes moving across a screen so no need for a mouse. Or, maybe it would mean highly effective voice interface, or even some kind of thought interface? If we think in a certain way, perhaps our facial muscles move a bit and the computer could read it? Steaming video email? If a computer can predict what occurs in a nuke explosion, I wonder if it could predict what would likely occur in my day -- giving me a chance to prevent mishaps or increase efficiency or give me advice on how to improve relations with a coworker? All this in like ten years, right?

[garjog]

Maybe with super computer power a PC could detect the movement of a users eyes moving across a screen so no need for a mouse. Or, maybe it would mean highly effective voice interface, or even some kind of thought interface? If we think in a certain way, perhaps our facial muscles move a bit and the computer could read it? Steaming video email? If a computer can predict what occurs in a nuke explosion, I wonder if it could predict what would likely occur in my day -- giving me a chance to prevent mishaps or increase efficiency or give me advice on how to improve relations with a coworker? All this in like ten years, right?

[garjog]

Maybe with super computer power a PC could detect the movement of a users eyes moving across a screen so no need for a mouse. Or, maybe it would mean highly effective voice interface, or even some kind of thought interface? If we think in a certain way, perhaps our facial muscles move a bit and the computer could read it? Steaming video email? If a computer can predict what occurs in a nuke explosion, I wonder if it could predict what would likely occur in my day -- giving me a chance to prevent mishaps or increase efficiency or give me advice on how to improve relations with a coworker? All this in like ten years, right?

[garjog]

Maybe with super computer power a PC could detect the movement of a users eyes moving across a screen so no need for a mouse. Or, maybe it would mean highly effective voice interface, or even some kind of thought interface? If we think in a certain way, perhaps our facial muscles move a bit and the computer could read it? Steaming video email? If a computer can predict what occurs in a nuke explosion, I wonder if it could predict what would likely occur in my day -- giving me a chance to prevent mishaps or increase efficiency or give me advice on how to improve relations with a coworker? All this in like ten years, right?

[ProudVet77]

Custom made Cray computers for the government, which cannot be sold. Although the government has enough talent to build bigger and faster machines without any companies help.
Nuff said on this subject.

[garjog]

Sorry for the repeat posts. When I posted it showed a blank screen and I thought that it didn't go through. Next time I am seriously going to buy the fastest computer that I can buy. I use this darn thing for three or more hours every night. It is worth it.

[uglybiker]

Mine's made out of wood and rocks.

[BlazingArizona]

Finally - a machine that can run Longhorn.

[Nick Danger]

Mine's made out of wood and rocks.

Rocks? You had rocks? When I was building my computer, the Earth hadn't even cooled. All we had was lava.

[ProudVet77]

I'm with you! There was a GE computer at the place I worked after I got out of the service in 74. I worked for Burroughs back then, Wall St area. Man those were machines, hard to explain it to the kids today. :)
PC's also killed AI and neural net. The WWW replaced computer science, kind of sad. I did some work based on Marvin Minsky's work. Now if they mention it the young managers think I'm talking about mickey mouse. :)

[sixmil]

Make sure you run slibclean as soon as you get it running.