Originally appeared in Monday, November 17, 2003 Oak Ridger
URL: http://www.oakridger.com/stories/111703/new_20031117020.shtml
ORNL charts four supercomputers on new ranking
SPEED: ORNL hopes to zoom past the competition with a
computer 300 times faster than the current No. 1.
By: Paul Parson | Oak Ridger Staff
paul.parson@oakridger.com
A Japanese supercomputer, which essentially creates a "virtual planet Earth," is
still leading the pack when it comes to speed while one local computer just made the Top 20.
In what has become a much-anticipated event in the world of high-performance computing,
the 22nd edition of the "Top 500" list of the world's fastest supercomputers once again
ranks as No. 1 the Earth Simulator, which can perform 35.8 trillion operations per second.
The list is compiled by researchers at the University of Tennessee, Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratory in California and the University of Mannheim in Germany.
The No. 2 position is again held by the ASCI Q system at the Department of Energy's Los
Alamos National Laboratory. ASCI Q - built by Hewlett-Packard - performs 13.88 trillion operations per second.
Four computers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory made the list, with the Cray X1
(2.9 trillion operations per second) ranking the highest at No. 20. ORNL's other
computers charted at 28, 100 and 193 on the list, which is issued twice a year.
However, ORNL officials hope to out-distance the competition with a supercomputer
that is scheduled for completion in 2008. The computer is expected to be 300 times
faster than the Japanese supercomputer.
For more information on the list of supercomputers, visit www.top500.org
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