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.

[uglybiker]

My rocks were carried in on the shockwave from the supernova that ignited the nebula that, in turn, formed our solar system.

[MainFrame65]

I used to maintain IBM 1311 disk drives. They used a removable, interchangeable disk "pack" that had 10 active surfaces on 6 14-inch disks, 100 cylinders, 20 sectors of 100 BCD characters each, total 2 million characters. About 10 pounds, and VERY fragile. Two units required about the same space as a dining room table.

On the table beside me is an old 512 megabyte USB "jump drive", the size of a pocket knife and about equally fragile. It operates in microseconds instead of milliseconds, and has greater capacity than the sum total of all the computers in Memphis from those days.

[SwordofTruth]

A semi highend CPU like a Xeon 3.4 GHz system will push 8.8 teraflops sustained.

That could ONLY be possible if that CPU was executing over 1000 instructions per cycle. I don't think any CPU in the world can do much more than 10 instructions per cycle. You clearly do not know what you are talking about.

[BlueMondaySkipper]

can only imagine the power consumed and heat produced!

The IBM p590 (which runs AIX and has been available for several months) requires 16,700 watts of power when fully configured. It also gives off 57,000 BTu/hr.

[BlueMondaySkipper]

The IBM p590...

Did not mean to imply that this computer is an IBM p590, I just wanted to point out the heat load some of these big machines can have.

[Golden Eagle]

...it simulates nuclear weapons...

Then we better keep a close eye on the technology then. We wouldn't want any of our potential enemies simulating nuclear destruction of anything, you wouldn't think. Worst case would have to be if they could just download that sort of stuff, for free, right from America...

[Nick Danger]

Too late now. It doesn't look like the government thinks this is nearly as big a deal as you would huff-and-puff us into believing. Perhaps you are just blowing smoke at us.

[BlazingArizona]

I used to maintain IBM 1311 disk drives. They used a removable, interchangeable disk "pack" that had 10 active surfaces on 6 14-inch disks, 100 cylinders, 20 sectors of 100 BCD characters each, total 2 million characters. About 10 pounds, and VERY fragile. Two units required about the same space as a dining room table.

I remember these beasts. The drive was the size of a top-loading washing machine. The "operator" - a high priest who was the only person given permission to actually be in the same room as a computer in those days - had to flip up the top of the drive and laboriously unscrew the disk when you needed another 2 megabytes of EBCDIC. It took both hands to lift the "disk pack" and heave it up to the shelf.

[Golden Eagle]

Too late now. It doesn't look like the government thinks this is nearly as big a deal as you would huff-and-puff us into believing. Perhaps you are just blowing smoke at us.

Now that you mention it, I guess NASA was actually allowed to give supercomputer secrets away for free to the Chinese, North Koreans, and Iranians while our government was headed up by Bill Clinton. You know, some of those people he appointed just might still hold office in the government? Wow, what an incredible thought, we might not be able to trust every last person in the government? Please Mr. Danger, come tell us all everything will be alright, like you always do. And that we never needn't worry, ever ever again.

[amigatec]

Mine is so old it has tubes. Feeding tubes. And you thought you had escaped from the Schiavo threads. Hah!

If you think that is bad I use a windmill, to power mine. :->