This is impressive, but I did one better when I invented the Internet.
Posted on 02/03/2009 5:13:30 AM PST by Zakeet
IBM plans to announce on Tuesday that it will supply the world's fastest supercomputer to the U.S. Department of Energy in the next few years, according to numerous reports.
Not only will the machine, called Sequoia, be the fastest supercomputer to date, it will blow the current record-holder out of the water. IBM's Roadrunner, located at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory, was the first system to reach 1.026 petaflops (a petaflop is equal to a quadrillion calculations per second; the "flops" stands for floating point operations per second). But only seven months after the Roadrunner took top honors on a twice-yearly list of the world's fastest supercomputers, IBM is announcing that its successor will outdo it by an order of magnitude. Sequoia will be able to work at a staggering 20 petaflops, the equivalent of the compute power of 2 million laptops according to Reuters.
IBM says it plans to deliver the Sequoia to the Energy Department for use at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The supercomputer will run simulations to test the soundness of the nation's stockpile of nuclear weaponry, according to the IDG News Service.
Like Roadrunner, IBM says Sequoia will be energy-efficient. It will draw 6 megawatts of power in a year, which is roughly what 500 American homes would use, according to Wired.
This is impressive, but I did one better when I invented the Internet.
“it will supply the world’s fastest supercomputer to the U.S. Department of Energy in the next few years....”
Oxymoron of sorts?
How's it do on TurboTax?
Forget modeling nukes. Put it to use on REALLY valuable projects — like showing how carbon dioxide is destroying the planet and mankind.
It says you owe.
Can I still use Word? It does Word right?
I’ll bet it still is slower than molasses on Vista.
All the better to assist the government to keep tabs on each individual’s energy consumption. The Feds gotta have something on which to base their Carbon Tax.
Cool, but can it divide by zero?
If you're asking it to perfectly model our tax code, I don't think we'll be able to build a computer that powerful for a while. And by then the tax code will be even bigger.
Unless the leftists win, then it'll be easy: give all your money to the government.
Finally, a computer that may be.....may be... fast enough to run Vista.
It’ll allow employees to link to FR really fast.
Still working on that one... :-)
'IBM to send blazing fast supercomputer to Energy Dept.'
Wouldn't you prefer a nice game of chess? 
Later. ....
Right now lets play Global Thermonuclear War.
I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords.
Somebody needs a refresher course in the difference between power and energy consumption. "6 megawatts of power" is a roughly instantaneous rate of energy usage, not a quantity of energy consumption. Do they mean 6 megawatt-hours? Or something else?
Yeah, the power thing is completely screwed in this article, which is common with our incompetent media. And this is the most energy-efficient supercomputer ever if it only uses 6 megawatt-hours in a year, since that would be a continuous 684 watt draw. A lot of high-speed desktops draw more power than that.
But I’m used to this error. They mean at full power it pulls 6 megawatts. But even that’s wrong because the actual measured power is about 2.5 megawatts. However, they might be counting cooling and the measured number I gave may not.
No, but Chuck Norris can.
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