Scientists develop World's fastest computer
Pastor Dale Morgan
Scientists develop World's fastest computer *
Jun 9 04:12 PM US/Eastern
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
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.
The technology breakthrough was accomplished by engineers from the Los
Alamos National Laboratory and 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, it has roughly the computing
power of 100,000 of today's most powerful laptops stacked 1.5 miles
high, according to IBM. Or, if each of the world's 6 billion people
worked on hand-held computers for 24 hours a day, it would take them 46
years to do what the Roadrunner computer can do in a single day.
The IBM and Los Alamos engineers worked six years on the computer
technology.
Some elements of the Roadrunner can be traced back to popular video
games, said David Turek, vice president of IBM's supercomputing
programs. In some ways, he said, it's "a very souped-up Sony PlayStation 3."
"We took the basic chip design (of a PlayStation) and advanced its
capability," said Turek.
But the Roadrunner supercomputer, named after the New Mexico state bird,
is nothing like a video game.
The interconnecting system occupies 6,000 square feet with 57 miles of
fiber optics and weighs 500,000 pounds. Although made from commercial
parts, the computer consists of 6,948 dual-core computer chips and
12,960 cell engines, and it has 80 terabytes of memory housed in 288
connected refrigerator-sized racks.
The cost: $100 million.
Turek said the computer in a two-hour test on May 25 achieved a
"petaflop" speed of sustained performance, something no other computer
had ever done. It did so again in several real applications involving
classified nuclear weapons work this past weekend.
"This is a huge and remarkable achievement," said Turek in a conference
call with reporters.
A "flop" is an acronym meaning floating-point-operations per second. One
petaflop is 1,000 trillion operations per second. Only two years ago,
there were no actual applications where a computer achieved 100
teraflops—a tenth of Roadrunner's speed—said Turek, noting that the
tenfold advancement came over a relatively short time.
The Roadrunner computer, now housed at the IBM research laboratory in
Poughkeepsie, N.Y., will be moved next month to the Los Alamos National
Laboratory in New Mexico.
Along with other supercomputers, it will be key "to assure the safety
and security of our (weapons) stockpile," said D'Agostino. With its
extraordinary speed it will be able to simulate the performances of a
warhead and help weapons scientists track warhead aging, he said.
But the computer—and more so the technology that it represents—marks a
future for a wide range of other research and uses. "The technology will
be pronounced in its employment across industry in the years to come,"
predicted Turek, the IBM executive.
Michael Anastasio, director of the Los Alamos lab, said that for the
first six months the computer will be used in unclassified work
including activities not related to the weapons program. After that,
about three-fourths of the work will involve weapons and other
classified government activities.
Anastasio said the computer, in its unclassified applications, is
expected to be used not only by Los Alamos scientists but others as
well. He said there can be broad applications such as helping to develop
a vaccine for the HIV virus, examine the chemistry in the production of
cellulosic ethanol, or to understand the origins of the universe.
Turek said the computer represents still another breakthrough,
particularly important in these days of expensive energy: It is an
energy miser compared with other supercomputers, performing 376 million
calculations for every watt of electricity used.
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On the Net:
Los Alamos National Laboratory: http://www.lanl.gov
IBM Corp.:
http://www.ibm.com/Search/?qRoadrunner&v16&langen&cczz&enutf&SearchSea rch