IBM Poised to retake supercomputer crown

[Schadenfroh]

Behold, Mira, 4x more powerful than the current champ:
http://articles.economictimes.india...319_1_fastest-supercomputer-mira-calculations

MIRA: World's fastest supercomputer
May 1, 2011

She is the supercomputer IBM Corp is building for US department of energy's Argonne National Lab. IBM says, Mira will make more than 10 quadrillion (1 quadrillion = 1,000 trillion) calculations a second, four times faster than China's Tianhe-1A, currently considered the fastest. The world's fastest supercomputer-tobe will make its debut next year.
...
IBM expects Mira to help department of energy (DOE) to do several complex calculations and be a "strong science and technology engine that will fuel national innovation". "Our goal is not to develop a system that is number one on a list. Our goal is to help Argonne advance its research, which will contribute significantly to society," says Schultz. Argonne National Lab is one of USDOE's oldest and largest labs for science and engineering research.

This is one of five supercomputers coming online in the near future, each about four times as powerful as the current fastest supercomputer in the world. Will be interesting to see how the others shape up.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130895386

Dongarra says he knows of five supercomputers now being built that are supposed to be four times more powerful than China's new machine. Three are in the U.S.; two are in Japan.

That is a whole lot of SETI@Home

 

[Pray To Jesus]

Can it run Crysis?

 

[DesiPower]

China couldn't steal the design early enough :biggrin: ?

 

[Perknose]

This is the key part:

Mr. DONGARRA: The more challenging thing is being able to effectively use these machines.

CHARLES: That's a programming challenge: writing computer software that will manage a supercomputer's thousands of individual processors to work together efficiently.

Dongarra says he has no idea how well the Chinese are doing with that part of the supercomputing challenge. Unlike the hardware race, the accomplishments of computer software are not easily measured.

 

[LegendKiller]

China couldn't steal the design early enough :biggrin: ?

They didn't steal the last one, they just slapped a bunch of INTC and NVDA chips in some boxes and claimed to have built a supercomputer. Meh.

 

[ultimatebob]

Figures that this would make headline news in India, considering that's where most of IBM's jobs are now

 

[DesiPower]

Figures that this would make headline news in India, considering that's where most of IBM's jobs are now

Thats IBMs sweat shop to compete with ultra cheap "consulting" companies with TCS, CTS and HCL. Real brain and innovation still happens in US.

 

[Away]

Mira became self-aware...