Birth Of A Terascale Baby

Seanasy writes: "Want to follow the construction of the most powerful unclassified computer in the world? The Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center will be publishing status updates on the installation of the Terascale Computing System. Right now you can view an MPEG movie of the first clusters to be installed."

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Fun stuff to know: power usage

[Idaho]

Did you know that computers like this use real much power? Like, *real* much?!

In Amsterdam (the Netherlands), no more computer-centers (e.g. co-locations where you can put your servers with a fast net connection) can be built because there is not enough power for them! Level 3 Communications has a co-location building there which is about 10.000 meters square (this is not as big as it sounds, it's just 100x100 m), filled up with ISPs servers and the like. This single building is actually using more energy than Schiphol airport (which is rather big - many trans-athlantic flights go through Schiphol. If you've ever been in the Netherlands you'll know)

They also have a diesel power generator that can power the entiry building in case of a blackout - it burns around 1000 liters (about 250 gallons or so) a day.