IBM super 'puter does 12 trillion calcs per second

Perfect for 3D nuke'em simulations

By Lucy Sherriff • Get more from this author

Posted in Business, 29th June 2000 11:55 GMT

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IBM's latest supercomputer is going to run three times as fast as the speediest beast in in action today.

The RS/6000 SP, known as the ASCI White supercomputer, which weighs in at 106 tons, is to be used by the US Department of Energy (DOE) to develop 3D simulation tools that will sidestep the need for real world nuclear weapons testing.

Apparently, the computer covers the area of two basketball courts and is capable of performing 12 trillion calculations per second. That makes it 1000 times faster than Deep Blue, and goodness only knows how much faster than Gary Kasparov.

It is powered by 8,192 copper microprocessors, and contains six TB of memory with more than 160 TB of IBM disk storage capacity. Quite a lot of space then...

It should be installed in the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California by the end of the year. Delivery will require 28 tractor trailer trucks. ®

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