INDUSTRY
IBM DOMINATES TOP500
SPECIAL COVERAGE FROM ISC2006 - With a 49 percent share of the list, IBM demonstrates across-the-board growth in Blue Gene, POWER and Opteron-based systems. -- IBM systems account for 242 of the 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world and more than half the total processing power according to the just-released TOP500 Supercomputer Sites list. IBM's Blue Gene/L at Lawrence Livermore tops the list with an unprecedented sustained performance of 280.6 Teraflops, or trillions of floating point calculations per second. IBM’s industry-leading performance was propelled by its strength across diverse computing platforms: including growth in the number of Blue Gene systems (from 19 to 25, compared with the previous list), AMD Opteron clusters (from 8 to 33), and System p-based machines (from 54 to 58), including the debut on the Top 500 list of the first announced Bladecenter JS21-based supercomputer -- the 15 teraflop system at Indiana University - named "Big Red" - which is currently the largest university based supercomputer in the United States.
Joining Blue Gene/L in the TOP500 list’s top three slots are IBM's own Blue Gene Watson system at 91.29 Teraflops, and the recently-upgraded ASC Purple supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory with 75.76 Teraflops. IBM had more than 1.5 petaflops of the list’s aggregate performance total of 2.791 petaflops, more than three times the total throughput of nearest rival, HP. IBM systems accounted for four of the top 10 machines on the list. IBM also had 46 of the top 100 systems. "By giving our clients access to innovative, affordable and flexible supercomputing power like Blue Gene, POWER5-based p5 575 systems, JS20 Power-based BladeCenter systems and the Deep Computing Capacity on Demand Center, we are providing new resources to drive breakthroughs in business, science and industry," said Dave Turek, vice president, Deep Computing, IBM. "Whether we are talking about improving the accuracy of weather forecasts, designing better automobiles or improving disease research, we are seeing the advent of a new supercomputing age." In addition, IBM is debuting six new Blue Gene systems on the Top500 List, including the three systems at KEK High Energy Accelerator Research Organization in Japan as well as the Forschungszentrum Juelich Laboratory in Germany - one which now stands at 8th on the list. Since IBM announced the commercial availability of the IBM eServer Blue Gene Solution, a commercial version of the research project, in November 2004, a record number of 25 Blue Gene systems appear on the list. Based on IBM's Power architecture, the IBM eServer Blue Gene Solution is optimized for bandwidth, scalability and the ability to handle large amounts of data while consuming a fraction of the power and floor space required by today's fastest systems. IBM and its partners are exploring a growing list of high performance computing (HPC) applications including life sciences, financial modeling, hydrodynamics, quantum chemistry, molecular dynamics, astronomy and space research and climate modeling for eServer Blue Gene. World’s Top Supercomputer Delivers Scientific Breakthrough In related news, on June 22, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced that their scientists had used the world’s most powerful computer, Blue Gene/L to run a scientific code at a sustained performance level of 207 teraflops – the most performant application ever run in the history of computing. Dubbed “Qbox,” the world’s largest application is used by Livermore scientists to understand the complex interactions of metals at the subatomic level and is a key element in the NNSA’s ASC mission to protect and maintain the safety and efficacy of the United States nuclear stockpile. Along with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, ASTRON, AIST, NIWS, NCAR, University of Edinburgh, San Diego Supercomputing Center, Argonne National Lab, The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the IBM Deep Computing Capacity on Demand Center, these research institutions make up a growing ecosystem of early collaborators dedicated to harnessing Blue Gene's power to advance research. Other key indicators of IBM supercomputing leadership: • IBM Leads the list with world’s #1 supercomputer (BlueGene/L for US Department of Energy/NNSA/LLNL – 280.6 TFlops) • #2 BlueGene/W at IBM Watson Research • And #3 ASC Purple at LLNL • Leads list with 243 entries (48.6%) • Leads installed aggregate throughput with over 1,514 out of 2,790 Teraflops (54.3%) • Most systems in TOP10 by any single vendor (4) • Most systems in TOP20 with 11 systems (55%) • Most systems in TOP100 systems with 46 (46%) • Most Cluster systems with 179 of 365 (49%) The "TOP500 Supercomputer Sites" is compiled and published by supercomputing experts Jack Dongarra from the University of Tennessee, Erich Strohmaier and Horst Simon of NERSC/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Hans Meuer of the University of Mannheim (Germany). The entire list can be viewed at its Web site.
Joining Blue Gene/L in the TOP500 list’s top three slots are IBM's own Blue Gene Watson system at 91.29 Teraflops, and the recently-upgraded ASC Purple supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory with 75.76 Teraflops. IBM had more than 1.5 petaflops of the list’s aggregate performance total of 2.791 petaflops, more than three times the total throughput of nearest rival, HP. IBM systems accounted for four of the top 10 machines on the list. IBM also had 46 of the top 100 systems. "By giving our clients access to innovative, affordable and flexible supercomputing power like Blue Gene, POWER5-based p5 575 systems, JS20 Power-based BladeCenter systems and the Deep Computing Capacity on Demand Center, we are providing new resources to drive breakthroughs in business, science and industry," said Dave Turek, vice president, Deep Computing, IBM. "Whether we are talking about improving the accuracy of weather forecasts, designing better automobiles or improving disease research, we are seeing the advent of a new supercomputing age." In addition, IBM is debuting six new Blue Gene systems on the Top500 List, including the three systems at KEK High Energy Accelerator Research Organization in Japan as well as the Forschungszentrum Juelich Laboratory in Germany - one which now stands at 8th on the list. Since IBM announced the commercial availability of the IBM eServer Blue Gene Solution, a commercial version of the research project, in November 2004, a record number of 25 Blue Gene systems appear on the list. Based on IBM's Power architecture, the IBM eServer Blue Gene Solution is optimized for bandwidth, scalability and the ability to handle large amounts of data while consuming a fraction of the power and floor space required by today's fastest systems. IBM and its partners are exploring a growing list of high performance computing (HPC) applications including life sciences, financial modeling, hydrodynamics, quantum chemistry, molecular dynamics, astronomy and space research and climate modeling for eServer Blue Gene. World’s Top Supercomputer Delivers Scientific Breakthrough In related news, on June 22, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced that their scientists had used the world’s most powerful computer, Blue Gene/L to run a scientific code at a sustained performance level of 207 teraflops – the most performant application ever run in the history of computing. Dubbed “Qbox,” the world’s largest application is used by Livermore scientists to understand the complex interactions of metals at the subatomic level and is a key element in the NNSA’s ASC mission to protect and maintain the safety and efficacy of the United States nuclear stockpile. Along with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, ASTRON, AIST, NIWS, NCAR, University of Edinburgh, San Diego Supercomputing Center, Argonne National Lab, The Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) and the IBM Deep Computing Capacity on Demand Center, these research institutions make up a growing ecosystem of early collaborators dedicated to harnessing Blue Gene's power to advance research. Other key indicators of IBM supercomputing leadership: • IBM Leads the list with world’s #1 supercomputer (BlueGene/L for US Department of Energy/NNSA/LLNL – 280.6 TFlops) • #2 BlueGene/W at IBM Watson Research • And #3 ASC Purple at LLNL • Leads list with 243 entries (48.6%) • Leads installed aggregate throughput with over 1,514 out of 2,790 Teraflops (54.3%) • Most systems in TOP10 by any single vendor (4) • Most systems in TOP20 with 11 systems (55%) • Most systems in TOP100 systems with 46 (46%) • Most Cluster systems with 179 of 365 (49%) The "TOP500 Supercomputer Sites" is compiled and published by supercomputing experts Jack Dongarra from the University of Tennessee, Erich Strohmaier and Horst Simon of NERSC/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Hans Meuer of the University of Mannheim (Germany). The entire list can be viewed at its Web site.