IBM’s Blue Gene/L System ranked #1 in supercomputers in a new top 500 list. The computer figures things out for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory with an unholy 136.8 teraflops Linpack benchmark. The computer has doubled in size during the last six months after this same computer ranked #1 six months ago.
The monumental calculator is a joint project between IBM and the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. The computer is much higher than the second, smaller Blue Gene system coming in at 91.2 teraflops. To put this in perspective, most personal computers get into the gigaflops or billions of calculations per second. The teraflop is trillions of calculations per second.
IBM continues to rule the roost in supercomputers, putting in 259 of the top 500 computers. The next closest was HP with 131 computers in the list. Intel ranked tops in the processor category with 333 processors floating through these various supercomputers.
Most of these supercomputers are located in the U.S., which figures up to 294. Europe owns 114 of these computers. One trend the study pointed was the number of supercomputers in Asia outside of Japan was rising significantly. Asia has 58 outside of Japan and China has 19 of these.
Blue Gene is IBM’s top performer in the super computer market. IBM pulled 6 of the top ten computers and 5 of those were Blue Genes. IBM beat out all other competitors with 51.8% of systems and 57.9% of installed performance.
The new list should be out in November. One can only wonder if anything will surpass Blue Gene/L or if it will remain the fastest calculator in the game.
John Stith is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
