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Japan Builds World's Fastest Computer

Posted by michael on from the rice-rocket dept.

claylikethemud writes "The New York Times reports that Japan has built the world's most powerful supercomputer from "640 specialized nodes that are in turn composed of 5,104" NEC processors. The machine boasts the computing power equivalent to the 20 fastest American supercomputers combined, and with a top speed of 35.6 teraflops, outpaces the next fastest machine, the ASCI White Pacific, by more than factor of five. Applications include climate modeling, global warming prediction, and other non-weapons research."

5 of 505 comments (clear)

  1. Did anyone see this coming? by saihung · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With all of the supercomputer posts on /. recently, I've seen a lot of talk about the various ASCI projects in the works by IBM and others. No one even mentioned this before. I'm glad to see that someone is building supercomputers for reasons other than nuclear weapons research though.

    1. Re:Did anyone see this coming? by JabberWokky · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I'm glad to see that someone is building supercomputers for reasons other than nuclear weapons research though.

      For some reason Japan isn't all that keen on nuclear weapons.

      --
      Evan

      --
      "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
  2. So when does a computer... by Bnonn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...become a huge goddamned distributed-network-in-a-room?

  3. Re:US:bombs vs. Japan: environment by Ed+Avis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What surprises me is that this is the first we (Slashdot readers) have heard about it. There have been several headlines saying 'new supercomputer planned' with a story 'it will be quite fast, and finished in 2004'... but this new world's-fastest-computer just suddenly appeared without being preannounced.

    Are any of the supercomputer projects in the pipeline expected to be faster than this?

    --
    -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
  4. Re:US:bombs vs. Japan: environment by macshit · · Score: 5, Insightful
    That is probably why they don't have a military (I think they now have a token military but not a real one)



    Actually, Japan has one of the largest military budgets in the world. They call their military the `Self Defense Forces', but it's the real thing, with big ships, tanks, fighter jets, and all that good stuff. No nukes though.

    --
    We live, as we dream -- alone....