IBM announced the birth of a new supercomputer. New machine, named Watson Blue Gene system was built in just 2 months which is a record. It will be used by about 3000 researchers of the IBM Thomas Watson Research Center.

The maximum power of Watson Blue Gene is 115 teraflops, which means 115 000 billions of operations per second. These specifications put the newborn supercomputer right behind the IBM most advanced product called Blue Gene (with maximum 135 000 billion operatons per second), which is used in Lawrence Livermore Laboratory.

Both computers are made modulary. The Watson system is made of 20 modules, with 2000 PowerPC processors in each of them. Eventhough they used low-energy circuit, Watson Gene will use 400 to 500 thousand dollars a year of electric power.

If you wish to have this "little" system at home, order it at IBM for only 40 million dollars - 2 millions for each module.

IBM apparently knows what to do with al the spare processors

 

 

 

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The National Weather Service today activated its most powerful weather-forecasting supercomputer ever—a massive machine with IBM and storage systems that will extend the government's ability to forecast hurricanes from three days to five days in advance. Making its debut as hurricane season 2003 begins, the machine is expected to give businesses, government agencies and citizens crucial extra time to prepare for the violent storms. Today's announcement marks the first phase of a contract that is expected to generate more than $200 million for IBM during the next nine years. When fully deployed, the system will be about four times faster than the most powerful supercomputer in the world today. In addition to its sheer size, the machine is notable for pioneering a new way of supplying deep computing power. The system is located at IBM's e-business Hosting Center in Gaithersburg, Maryland, with processing power and storage capability delivered to the government via an ultra-fast network. Today's announcement marries IBM's powerful supercomputing technology with the ever-increasing sophistication of the National Weather Service's prediction tools," said Dave Turek, vice president, IBM Deep Computing. "The resulting improvement in forecasting capability illustrates the true power and benefit of deep computing where technology, deep expertise and insight come together. The supercomputer will be delivered in stages. The first phase—a cluster of 44 IBM p690 servers supported by 42 terabytes of IBM TotalStorage FAStT500 Storage Server disk storage—doubles the current computing power for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration's National Weather Service. IBM will expand the system to reach a peak speed well in excess of 100 teraflops by 2009. It would take one person with a calculator more than 80 million years to tabulate the number of calculations a 100 teraflop supercomputer can handle in a single second. Supercomputers—large machines that sometimes require more floor space than a basketball court—have traditionally been located at customer sites. IBM's flexible hosting service enables customers to reap the benefits of powerful supercomputers via a high speed connection, without having to provide the physical space to house the computer. Very fast

 

 

 

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What the Heck?

40 Million US Dollars for just a computer? what in Christ's name will I be doing with such a computer? Download the whole of the internet? Or start challenging MicroSoft in software development?

My my my...thats a very cumbersome amount for someone to spend on a personal computer. Yea I know that (like you said) IBM definitely knows what to do with the spare processors but not to the tune of
$40, 000, 000.

Well, thats my view anyways. I know that there are some people out there who has more than enough money to purchase this very powerpc and not feel a scratch on there skin.

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Jesus Blummin Chirst, 40,000,000 for a Computer, I understand that its a Super Computer but there might not be any buyers buying a computer at that price,

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I would want one but if someone gave it to me free I wouldn't take
it because electricity costs too much. If I could sell it I would.

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Actually I think with one of these, trap17 would have enough power to handle the army system again AND make its forums look faster than a 56k line.

Hmm... $40,000,000 for a 40,000 processor machine. $1000 : 1?
Yes, IBM knows what to do with its spares, after the Mac's moving to x86's and all...

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Doesn't say anything in there about being a personal computer and obviously no private citizen is ever gonna own one.

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