Fastest computer back in U.S.

PITTSBURGH – Big Blue has brought the title of the world’s fastest supercomputer back to the United States for the first time in three years.

International Business Machines Corp.’s still incomplete Blue Gene/L system officially was named the fastest in the world Monday by the Top500 project, an independent group of university computer scientists who release supercomputer rankings every six months.

The system was clocked at 70.72 trillion calculations per second, almost double the performance of the reigning leader, Japan’s Earth Simulator, which can sustain 35.86 trillion calculations a second.

Blue Gene/L will be installed next year at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where it will be used to study the nation’s nuclear stockpile and perform other research. Now, it is only a quarter of its planned size.

IBM officials downplayed a U.S. manufacturer regaining the top spot.

“IBM has dominated the top of supercomputing for a number of years, so having reclaimed the No. 1 spot in the world is not that significant,” said Dave Turek, IBM’s vice president of deep computing. Instead, he pointed to the system’s relatively low energy consumption and small size.

Blue Gene/L will consume about $1 million a year in electricity. If the Earth Simulator were as powerful, it would consume $60 million in electricity each year, Turek said.

The IBM system also will take up only 2,500 square feet compared with 34,000 square feet for the Earth Simulator.

“This machine is designed for a very, very small physical footprint and an energy-efficient design,” Turek said.

Besides IBM’s Blue Gene/L taking the top spot, another U.S. supercomputer at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Ames Research Center grabbed No. 2 in the world, turning 51.87 trillion calculations a second, or teraflops.

Officials at Tokyo-based NEC, which made the Japanese supercomputer, did not return a phone call immediately for comment. The system, which first was ranked the fastest in 2002, now is No. 3 in the world.

Though the United States previously had nine of the 10 fastest computers in the world, the Japanese supercomputer at the top of the list had been a sore spot for U.S. officials, federal research labs and universities.

Monday’s announcement ends a race between IBM and the U.S. Department of Energy and system-builder Silicon Graphics Inc., chip maker Intel Corp. and NASA for bragging rights.