Supercomputer sets petaflop pace

[dipsydoodle]

Currently, BlueGene/L is the most powerful computer in the world
A supercomputer built with components designed for the Sony PlayStation 3 has set a new computing milestone.

The IBM machine, codenamed Roadrunner, has been shown to run at "petaflop speeds", the equivalent of one thousand trillion calculations per second.

The benchmark means the computer is twice as nimble as the current world's fastest machine, also built by IBM.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7443557.stm

"It will be installed at a US government laboratory later this year where it will monitor the US nuclear stockpile."

Hopefully they'll find someone with half a brain to make sure none go walkies again.

[hobbit709]

1. "It will be installed at a US government laboratory-where it will monitor the US nuclear stockpile"

Yeah, right. You don't need a supercomputer for that-any decent computer with inventory control software can keep track of that. I'm willing to bet that's the cover story. Now, monitoring phone calls, modeling nuclear reactions and things like that take a supercomputer.

[Jim__]

2. It will also be used for research into astronomy, genomics and climate change.

It will be installed at a US government laboratory later this year where it will monitor the US nuclear stockpile.

It will also be used for research into astronomy, genomics and climate change.

"We are getting closer to simulating the real world," Bijan Davari, vice president of next generation computing systems at IBM, told BBC News.

It would be of particular use for calculating risk in financial markets, he said.

I have to admit, I'm impressed. I had no idea they could get that kind of throughput on floating-point operations.

[Random_Australian]

5. Actually, it's not a cover story.

They actually listed the purpose as modelling nuclear reactions.

It's just not stated as such in the media report in the OP.

But yeah, now that they can't perform real nulcear tests, they do modelling.

[pokerfan]

3. Heard about this last night whilst listening to the BBC

only they used a "million billion" instead of a
thousand trillion." I fell asleep wondering whether they were using the British version of 'billion' (10¹²) or the American version (10⁹). The Brits used 'milliard' to describe 10⁹ or at least they used to.

[Random_Australian]

4. 'American' version, 10 to the 9.

9+6 =15.

peta = 10 to the 15

[pokerfan]

6. Thank you

I managed to gather that from the article. :)

Interesting. Tonight the ST:TNG episode, 'The Measure of a Man' aired on cable. It gave Data's processing speed as sixty trillion operations per second.

Probably sounded like a lot in 1989.

[moggie]

7. The British versions aren't much used any more

Can't remember the last time I heard "milliard" used, and "billion" in common use pretty much always means 10⁹ in the UK these days.

[pokerfan]

8. That's what I thought

but I tend to read a lot and I tend to see it (old British billion) at times. Milliard seems to have been replaced with thousand-million even earlier. I wish everyone would simply use the SI prefixes.