14 DAY TRIAL // For the last few years, the most powerful superomputer ever created has been a result of IBM research and development efforts, and BlueGene has been used in the Energy Department facility in Rochester, USA. One of the last benchmarks performed in the BlueGene system revealed a new Linpack record of over 70,72 terraflops per second (which means around 70 trillion operations). The system included over 32,760 processors.
These outstanding results have been outdone by the latest benchmark performed on the BlueGene/L supercomputer. This particular system will be used at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and was presented by the US National Nuclear Security Administration. The supercomputer includes over 65,530 processors and has performed an incredible 280.6 trillion operations per second, according to the Linpack benchmark, used to rank speeds of the world's fastest computers.
Purple, the second supercomputer on display was capable of solving 100 trillion operations per second and will be used from now on to run three-dimensional codes for nuclear weapons' analysis. Together, the Purple and BlueGene/L systems will perform half a petaflop, or half of a quadrillion operations per second.
Both systems were developed through the NNSA's (National Nuclear Security Administration) Advanced Simulation and Computing program and will join other supercomputers in Los Alamos and Sandia in order to maintain the nation's nuclear deterrent through science-based computation.