The world's top 25 computing beasts (in descending order of processing speed)

BusinessWeek ^ | 12 june 2005 | Businessweek

[voletti]

IBM has just switched on the biggest number-crunching beast in private industry. Located at Big Blue's Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., the new computer can spit out more than 91 trillion calculations a second. Yes, you read that right: 91 trillion calculations a second, or 91 teraflops, in industry jargon. This incredible speed ranks it as the world's second-fastest supercomputer. The only speedier machine is the mammoth, 367-teraflops system that IBM (IBM ) is installing at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for research on nuclear weapons. Both are based on IBM's innovative BlueGene/L architecture. However, another IBM computer, now also being installed at Lawrence Livermore, will edge into the No. 2 slot by a slim margin later this year. (For a list of the world's current and upcoming speedsters, see BusinessWeek's Top 25 Supercomputers.)

[voletti]

Only 3 of the top 10 are in the US though. Are we, what, losing the edge or something??

[Aetius]

Yes, and its somehow Bush's fault.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

The problem is that we have extremely tight export limitations on these kinds of machines, and there is a VERY limited domestic market for them. (Not many folks need to simulate what happens inside the "physics package" during the first few microseconds of a hydrogen bomb going off.)

So the market is dominated by foreigners who don't give a s**t what the machines get used for.

[ChadGore]

TOP 25 SUPERCOMPUTERS
Speedy computers have become indispensable to new breakthroughs in science, engineering, and business. A worldwide race is under way to build ever-faster machines for tackling ever-tougher problems. To keep tabs on this competition, BusinessWeek Online will regularly update this list of the top teracrunchers
Rank	Location and User	Computer (vendor)	Peak Speed teraflops*
**	U.S.: Lawrence Livermore Lab	BlueGene/L (IBM)	367
1	U.S.: Lawrence Livermore Lab	BlueGene/L (IBM)	183.5
**	U.S.: Lawrence Livermore Lab	ASCI Purple (IBM)	93.4
2	U.S.: IBM Watson Research	BGW (IBM)	91
3	Japan: Riken	Molecular Dynamics Machine	78
**	Germany: Leibniz Computing Center	HLRB-II (SGI)	69
4	Japan: University of Tokyo	Grape-6 (self-made)	64
5	Japan: Undisclosed	(Hitachi)	62
6	U.S.: NASA Ames	Columbia (SGI)	61
**	France: Nuclear Power Agency	Tera10 (Bull)	60
7	Netherlands: Astron	(IBM)	43
8	U.S.: Sandia National Labs	Red Storm (Cray)	41.5
9	Japan: Earth Simulator Center	Earth Simulator (NEC)	41
10	Spain: Barcelona Super Center	MareNostrum (IBM)	40
**	U.S.: Oak Ridge National Lab	(Cray)	40
11	U.S.: Lawrence Livermore Lab	Thunder (California Digital)	23
12	Switzerland: Ecole Polytechnique	Blue Brain (IBM)	23
13	China: Meteorlogical Admin.	(IBM)	22
**	U.S.: Army Corps of Engineers	(Cray)	21
14	U.S.: Los Alamos Lab	ASCI Q (Hewlett-Packard)	20.5
15	U.S.: Virginia Tech	System X (Apple Computer)	20
16	U.S.: Naval Oceanographic Office	Blue Wave (IBM)	20
17	UK: European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF)	(IBM)	16.5
18	UK: ECMWF	(IBM)	16.5
19	U.S.: IBM	BlueGene/L Prototype (IBM)	16.4
**	Korea: Meteorological Admin.	(Cray)	16
20	U.S.: Nat'l Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) Tungsten (Dell)	(Dell)	15
21	U.S.: Army Research Lab	John vonNeumann (Linux Networx)	14
22	U.S.: Wright-Patterson AFB	Eagle (SGI)	13
**	Japan: Atomic Energy Research	(SGI)	13
23	Japan: Riken	Riken Cluster (Fujitsu)	12.5
24	U.S.: Lawrence Livermore Lab	ASCI White (IBM)	12
25	Japan: National Aerospace Lab	Primepower (Fujitsu)	12
25	U.S.: Pacific Northwest Lab	Mpp2 (HP)	12
*A teraflops is a trillion (tera) floating-point operations per second (flops), or calculations where the decimal point isn't fixed.
**System has been ordered but isn't yet fully installed.
DATA: www.Top500.org and company reports

[Borges]

On first glance, I thought the title of this thread was 'The world's top 25 Competing Breasts'.

[ThinkDifferent]

10^14 ops/second is getting pretty close to the theoretical computational power of the human brain. If we can figure out how to write good AI software, interesting times are ahead.

[voletti]

Here's the list, btw:
Hope it stacks up ok on html. I merely copy-pasted it.
Rank Location and User Computer (vendor) Peak Speed teraflops*
** U.S.: Lawrence Livermore Lab BlueGene/L (IBM) 367
1 U.S.: Lawrence Livermore Lab BlueGene/L (IBM) 183.5
** U.S.: Lawrence Livermore Lab ASCI Purple (IBM) 93.4
2 U.S.: IBM Watson Research BGW (IBM) 91
3 Japan: Riken Molecular Dynamics Machine 78
** Germany: Leibniz Computing Center HLRB-II (SGI) 69
4 Japan: University of Tokyo Grape-6 (self-made) 64
5 Japan: Undisclosed (Hitachi) 62
6 U.S.: NASA Ames Columbia (SGI) 61
** France: Nuclear Power Agency Tera10 (Bull) 60
7 Netherlands: Astron (IBM) 43
8 U.S.: Sandia National Labs Red Storm (Cray) 41.5
9 Japan: Earth Simulator Center Earth Simulator (NEC) 41
10 Spain: Barcelona Super Center MareNostrum (IBM) 40
** U.S.: Oak Ridge National Lab (Cray) 40
11 U.S.: Lawrence Livermore Lab Thunder (California Digital) 23
12 Switzerland: Ecole Polytechnique Blue Brain (IBM) 23
13 China: Meteorlogical Admin. (IBM) 22
** U.S.: Army Corps of Engineers (Cray) 21
14 U.S.: Los Alamos Lab ASCI Q (Hewlett-Packard) 20.5
15 U.S.: Virginia Tech System X (Apple Computer) 20
16 U.S.: Naval Oceanographic Office Blue Wave (IBM) 20
17 UK: European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) (IBM) 16.5
18 UK: ECMWF (IBM) 16.5
19 U.S.: IBM BlueGene/L Prototype (IBM) 16.4
** Korea: Meteorological Admin. (Cray) 16
20 U.S.: Nat'l Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) Tungsten (Dell) (Dell) 15
21 U.S.: Army Research Lab John vonNeumann (Linux Networx) 14
22 U.S.: Wright-Patterson AFB Eagle (SGI) 13
** Japan: Atomic Energy Research (SGI) 13
23 Japan: Riken Riken Cluster (Fujitsu) 12.5
24 U.S.: Lawrence Livermore Lab ASCI White (IBM) 12
25 Japan: National Aerospace Lab Primepower (Fujitsu) 12
25 U.S.: Pacific Northwest Lab Mpp2 (HP) 12
*A teraflops is a trillion (tera) floating-point operations per second (flops), or calculations where the decimal point isn't fixed.
**System has been ordered but isn't yet fully installed.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

"Turing Police, Mr. Case."

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

"On first glance, I thought the title of this thread was 'The world's top 25 Competing Breasts'."

The "computing breasts" are all silicon :)

[discostu]

Most of them are made by American companies, just not installed in America. Apparently we don't need that much ultra-big iron, probably because American are really fond of networks and various work sharing programs, you'd be amazed at what kind of stuff you can accomplish if everyone leaves their desktop on in a mid-size company and some huge process is set to run late at night with borrowed CPU time from all those idle PCs.

[Centurion2000]

Only 3 of the top 10 are in the US though. Are we, what, losing the edge or something??

Look at the rest of the list and you will see that the US DOMINATES this list.

[South40]

This didn't make the list?

[SteveMcKing]

It still does nothing to solve exponentially complex problems, but I wonder how much improvement one would notice for trying.

[thegreatbeast]

So we got the title back from the Japanese? Good.

[Bob]

Japan: University of Tokyo....Grape-6....(self-made)....64

Wow! I must have missed some advances in AI over the years. :=)

[MRMEAN]

I guess Whirlwind has dropped out of the top 25.

[thegreatbeast]

From all I can gleam from the news, all the stuff that comes in the front door of Lawrence Livermoore goes right out the back. I guess these beasts are too big to move.

[Dr._Joseph_Warren]

4 Japan: University of Tokyo Grape-6 (self-made) 64

OMG!!! The computers are starting to make themselves?!?!?! ;)

[Robert A Cook PE]

18 out of top 25 are US.

(Soviet Union = 0)

Japan most of the rest.

Socialist Europe? Only a handful.

[Robert A Cook PE]

The "computing breasts" are all silicon :)

Heck, almost all of the competing breasts are made out of silicon too.