Intel Now Inside Two-Thirds Of The World's Fastest Super Computers

From increasing the accuracy of global weather forecasts to helping to improve the safety of manned space flight, the majority of scientists and engineers depend on Intel-based super computers more than any other computing system, according to the latest TOP500 list.

Issued today, the 25th Edition of the TOP500 list of super computers shows that 333 of the world's top 500 systems on the list have Intel processors inside. Five years ago only four systems on the list were Intel-based. Since that time, the number of Intel-based systems has increased steadily, to achieve the distinction as the most prevalent super computer architecture on the TOP500.

In fact, according to the just-released ranking, three Intel-based platforms ranked first, second and third in terms of the most popular super computing platform: Intel Xeon processors and Intel Xeon processors with 64-bit extensions power 254 systems, more than any other single processor, followed by Intel Itanium 2 processors, which power 79 systems.

More than half of the TOP500 systems are driven by Intel Xeon processors, making them seven times more prevalent on the list than the next closest x86 architecture-based systems. After launching only one year ago, 64-bit Intel Xeon processors are already used in 77 of the TOP500 computing systems.