Supercomputers Pass Petaflop Barrier

By Greg McNevin

November 20 2008: The latest batch of supercomputers has been unveiled this week, with the list for this years top 500 number crunchers including several breaking the petaflop barrier – a milestone some researchers say could revolutionise science more than any other discovery in living memory.

Released at the international supercomputing conference in Austin, Texas, the list includes supercomputing rockstars IBM and Cray, who have again duked it out for the top spot. IBM has narrowly managed to hang on to its title as world heavyweight, with 1.105 and 1.059 quadrillion floating-point calculations per second respectively.

Being faster does not simply make one the head of the pride, however, as such mind-boggling speeds will, according to some researchers, open up a whole new world of scientific possibility.

Scientists will, for example, be able to create simulations like never before, creating extremely accurate models of complex systems such as climate modelling, and undertake new experiments in physics, massively speeding up time between research and development to applied technology.

“The scientific method has changed for the first time since Galileo invented the telescope,” said computer scientist Mark Seager of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory according to wired.com.

Two years ago, passing the petaflop barrier was thought of as science fiction by some, however, at the current rate of advancement IBM or Cray could be trumpeting a ten petaflop beast within seven years. According to prominent technology author Ray Kurzweil, that is roughly equivalent to the calculating power of a human brain.

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