IBM Doubles Supercomputing Speed

By Greg McNevin

June 11, 2008: A new benchmark has been set in the world of supercomputing with an IBM built machine codenamed “roadrunner” displaying petaflop speeds.

This translates to one thousand-trillion calculations per second – roughly twice as fast as IBM’s current record holder, Blue Gene.

Built from parts designed for Sony’s Playstation 3, the speeds that Roadrunner can achieve are nothing short of phenomenal. According to Bijan Davari, vice president of next generation computing systems at IBM, the company is getting close to “simulating the real world.”

“The latency of the calculations is so small that for all practical purposes it is real time,” Bijan told BBC World.

He adds that Roadrunner would be particularly useful for calculating risk in financial markets. However, it is destined for use within the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DoE) nuclear weapon stockpile monitoring program.

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