November 18, 2003
The World's Most Powerful Supercomputers
Twice a year, the TOP500 project releases a list of the sites operating the 500 most powerful computer systems in the world. The latest edition of the high-performance computing compilation has just been released.
Retaining its number one position is the Earth Simulator Center, built by NEC in Yokohama, Japan, with a Linpack benchmark performance of 35.86 teraflops per second. In second place is the ASCI Q machine at Los Alamos, at 13.88 TFlop/s.
The Earth Simulator System is used to model the atmosphere, ocean and solid earth, producing data useful for the prediction and analysis of natural disasters and environmental trends. When it was completed in early 2002, the Japanese machine was so powerful that it equalled the combined processing power of the 20 fastest American computers at the time.
IBM leads the list in terms of total installed performance, accounting for over 35% of the installed base of 528 TFlop/s, followed by HP at 22.7 % and NEC at 8.7%.
Intel processors power 38% of the listed systems, up from 11% only a year ago.
Let's not forget the newest addition to the Top 10 (at #3), the aptly named X cluster at Virginia Tech. At 10.28 TFlop/s, it's the fastest supercomputer ever built by an educational institution. Plus, we're likely to see several more of these budget supercomputers built out of stock Apple Dual G5 systems after VT releases the plans for their cluster and open-sources the changes they made to Mac OS X to support their efforts.
Another interesting computer can be found at #73. The BlueGene/L prototype by IBM is interesting because it's built out of the same family of processors that will be seen in the next generation Nintendo and Sony video game consoles. Economies of scale should make building of supercomputers like BlueGene/L much less expensive after these chips go into production for game consoles.
Posted by Nickolas at November 18, 2003 11:27 AMwhat is super computer what it do ?tell me
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