PHYSICS

Oak Ridge National Laboratory is working with the Cray Corp. to develop a supercomputer that would be the fastest in the world. The project has the backing of U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, but its success depends on a large increase in funding. ORNL and Cray are trying to surpass Japan's Earth Simulator, now the world's fastest computer and capable of making 35 trillion calculations a second. Alexander visited Japan last week and said the United States should build the world's most powerful computer to assure its future pre-eminence in science and technology. "What's impressive is that Japan has led the world in having the most powerful computer since 2002 -- a long time in computer time," Alexander said Monday. "It's three times more powerful than any computer our nation has for scientific computing." Alexander is pushing a plan that would double spending by the Department of Energy's Office of Science over the next five years. While the United States invests more dollars in research than Japan, he said Japan spends more per capita. "Japan understands very well that to keep its standard of living is to invest in research," he said. Citing rising concerns about air pollution in Tennessee, Alexander said a high-performance computer could help scientists better understand environmental issues such as global climate change. Alexander also said more than half of the U.S. jobs created since World War II have been linked to advancements in science and technology. ORNL has a track record for sharing its resources with scientific users from around the United States and that could be a significant advantage if the lab receives approval to develop the world's fastest computer, Alexander said. Cray, based in Seattle, builds "massively parallel" computers designed for scientific research, engineering, weather forecasting and classified government projects. Competitors include IBM and Sun Microsystems.