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Sandia, Compaq, and Celera To Build Petaflop Machine

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the dear-lord-that's-a-lot dept.

Fact-o-matic writes: " Compaq, government weapons facility Sandia National Laboratories and genetics researcher Celera Genomics are teaming up to build a petaflop computer -- one that will process 1,000 trillion operations per second. To listen to an audio playback of today's press conference announcing the project, Celera has set up a phone-in recording: call (800) 642-1687, and enter the conference ID: 818790 You can read the joint press release or the Compaq press release"

5 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Yes, it's another Linux win ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5
    You betcha it's a LINUX computer. Here is the the Computer World link. Here is an excerpt: "The U.S. Department of Energy today said its Sandia National Laboratories are teaming up with Compaq Computer Corp. and a biotechnology company to develop a $150 million Linux-based supercomputer that's supposed to be capable of processing at least 100 trillion operations per second."

    "The Sandia labs and Celera Genomics Group in Rockville, Md., plan to work together on the project under a joint research and development agreement, with Houston-based Compaq as their technology provider. The planned system will be built around future versions of Compaq's AlphaServer SC supercomputer line and is being designed for use in complex applications in the fields of computational biology and life sciences...."

    "The prototype supercomputer will likely use 10,000 to 20,000 of Compaq's Alpha processors and is being budgeted at $150 million in current costs, according to Blake. He added that the first system could eventually lead to the development of a so-called "petacruncher" -- a machine capable of 1,000 teraflops -- by the end of the decade."

  2. Think we can /. a phone number? by cstew · · Score: 4

    How long 'till the 800 number says that all lines are full?

  3. Re:Petaflop machine by dvk · · Score: 4
    > Why do we need a computer this fast? What can it
    > do that can't be done by a distributed system?

    Not every possible computation can be made distributed without major performance loss. Remember, this baby IS vastly parallel (10K-20K processors), but the inter-processor communications are way faster than any network, and some problems that can be parallelized aren't easily distributed.

    Also, i doubt you want nuke research done on the same set of systems running SETI@Home :-)

    -DVK

    --
    "The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it"-R.A.Heinlein
  4. I see an IP lawsuit around the corner. by Spazntwich · · Score: 4

    PETA won't stand for this. I can already see the lawsuit's coming, along with the spraypainted keyboard's and silicon is murder signs. *sigh*
    ---

  5. Yay! by Dwedit · · Score: 5

    Yay!
    I'm glad all that crazy animal rights group flopped!