IBM Breaks Own Supercomputer Record

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.

A LINPACK benchmark of 135.3 trillion floating point operations per second (teraflops) was achieved in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory at the half-system point; meaning, there is more performance to come.

BlueGene/L burst onto the scene in October of 2004, achieving 36.01 teraflops and significantly reducing the energy consumption and profile of the supercomputer.

In comparison to today's technology, CRAY 1, the word's first supercomputer, reached a top speed of 133 megaflops. A megaflop is equivalent to one million instructions per second; a teraflop is equivalent to a trillion operations per second.

"BlueGene/L's latest accomplishment is an important step toward achieving the capabilities we need to succeed in our stockpile stewardship mission," said Michael Anastasio, Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "BlueGene/L allows us to address computationally taxing stockpile science issues at very low cost. Effective and relatively inexpensive supercomputers of this nature will open doors for scientists across the country."

The NNSA is using BlueGene to model tests that eliminate the need for actual nuclear testing.

Because of its low energy consumption and smaller size, IBM has begun a computing on demand program powered by BlueGene. The service targets commercial disciplines that have a growing demand for the performance of supercomputers, but cannot afford the high costs associated with ownership.