N.M. Senator Gained Funding for Los Alamos National Lab Computing Partnership: U.S. Senator Pete Domenici today dubbed the Roadrunner supercomputer at Los Alamos National Laboratory as the "fastest earmark in the world" following confirmation that it is the first to reach a sustained performance of 1 petaflops or a thousand trillion computations per second. Domenici, as then chairman of the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, provided the first and subsequent funding for the Roadrunner supercomputer project at LANL. The lab is partnered with IBM and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) on the project. "This the fastest earmark in the world," Domenici said. "Los Alamos scientists convinced me that an investment in this project could be the best thing to advance American dominance in supercomputing. I believed in the lab's capabilities and I am happy our investment in the Roadrunner, which started an earmark, is breaking computing records today." In late May, LANL and IBM ran a standard calculation to validate both peak and sustained calculation to validate both peak and sustained calculation speed, and the Roadrunner system passed the 1.1 petaflops mark. "This is a sensational achievement and this science is not just exclusively for use in ensuring the safety and reliability of our nuclear weapons. Its gigantic calculations can be used to support research on climate change, human health, biology, physics and the spectrum of simulation research carried out at our national laboratories," Domenici said. Domenici provided $35 million in FY2006 funding for the Roadrunner project, and NNSA contributed another $6.0 million to get the project underway. The following year, Domenici secured another $14.6 million for the project and last year Congress approved $44.6 million for the project. The FY2009 budget request seeks $26 million in Advanced Simulation Computing money to for the Roadrunner system. Domenici signaled his intention to continue promoting high performance computing at both LANL and Sandia National Laboratories as his Senate term nears its end, including following through with his FY2008 directive for the NNSA and DOE Office of Science to establish Advanced Architecture and Algorithms with Centers of Excellence at Sandia and Oak Ridge. They will execute a national program to sustain U.S. leadership in high performance computing. This activity will be jointly funded by the DOE Office of Science and NNSA. A related story is published in the New York Times Monday: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/technology/09petaflops.html?_r=1&oref=slogin.