mentor: blog 
mentor's blog
want one asap....
Published Jun. 9, 2008
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Scientists unveiled the world's fastest supercomputer on Monday, a $100 million machine that for the first time has performed 1,000 trillion calculations per second in a sustained exercise.
An IBM engineer inspects the world's fastest computer in the company's Poughkeepsie, New York, plant.
The technology breakthrough was accomplished by engineers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory and the IBM Corp. on a computer to be used primarily on nuclear weapons work, including simulating nuclear explosions.
The computer, named Roadrunner, is twice as fast as IBM's Blue Gene system at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which itself is three times faster than any of the world's other supercomputers, according to IBM.
"The computer is a speed demon. It will allow us to solve tremendous problems," said Thomas D'Agostino, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees nuclear weapons research and maintains the warhead stockpile.
But officials said the computer also could have a wide range of other applications in civilian engineering, medicine and science, from developing biofuels and designing more fuel efficient cars to finding drug therapies and providing services to the financial industry.
To put the computer's speed in perspective, if every one of the 6 billion people on earth used a hand-held computer and worked 24 hours a day it would take them 46 years to do what the Roadrunner computer can do in a single day.
IBM and Los Alamos engineers worked six years on the computer technology.
Good to know we're still in the lead in this type of tech! - In the lead in the "toot our own horn" category at least. For all we know the NSA has a rig at Fort Meade that makes this look like a pocket calculator.
Maybe I could finally run Crysis in Hi-Res Mode! :-)
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STS
GOLO member since June 7, 2008
June 9, 2008 4:56 p.m.
June 9, 2008 4:54 p.m.
But we can sure hold some beer..
June 9, 2008 4:51 p.m.
Not cynical are you? :-/ Can't fault you for that. Hopefully they will do more with these supercomputers than just simulate nuclear explosions. Depends on who's holding the purse-strings.
GOLO member since March 18, 2008
June 9, 2008 4:48 p.m.
June 9, 2008 4:43 p.m.
GOLO member since November 6, 2007
June 9, 2008 4:43 p.m.
I don't know if we are leading but I do know we were just the first to disclose its design. You know we Americans can't hold water...
GOLO member since May 22, 2008
June 9, 2008 4:42 p.m.
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