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Inside Tsubame, Japan's GPU-Based Supercomputer

Posted by timothy on from the please-don't-christen-the-supercomputer dept.

Startled Hippo writes "Japan's Tsubame supercomputer was ranked 29th-fastest in the world in the latest Top 500 ranking with a speed of 77.48T Flops (floating point operations per second) on the industry-standard Linpack benchmark. Why is it so special? It uses NVIDIA GPUs. Tsubame includes hundreds of graphics processors of the same type used in consumer PCs, working alongside CPUs in a mixed environment that some say is a model for future supercomputers serving disciplines like material chemistry." Unlike the GPU-based Tesla, Tsubame definitely won't be mistaken for a personal computer.

3 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. Wow! [Obligatory] by cashman73 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Imagine a beowulf cluster of one of these could do! Oh, wait! ;-)

  2. Clever name by subStance · · Score: 4, Funny

    Ironic name: tsubame means sparrow in japanese, and also has the slang usage of toy-boy (as in a cougar's toy-boy).

    Not sure what to read into that ...

    --
    Servlet v2.4 container in a single 161KB jar file ? Try Winstone
    1. Re:Clever name by TeknoHog · · Score: 2, Funny

      Tsubame is actually 'swallow',

      Is that an African, a European, or an Asian swallow?

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.