From Techtree.com:

One for this "Roadrunner"!
Jun 10, 2008

A new supercomputer code-named "Roadrunner" is being touted as the world's fastest machine so far. Designed and built by IBM, this super computer, costing nearly $100 million, can operate at 1 petaflop per second, which is equivalent to one thousand trillion calculations per second.

This makes it twice as fast as the reigning "numero uno" aka IBM's Blue Gene system at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab. Again, Blue Gene is nearly three times faster than top contenders on the current 'top 500 supercomputers' list.

Additionally, "Roadrunner" is also billed to be the world's first hybrid supercomputer. Interestingly, it has been designed using components originally designed for video game platforms such as the Sony Playstation 3. "Roadrunner" operates on open-source Linux software, works in conjunction with x86 processors from AMD, and has 80 terabytes of memory.

"Roadrunner" will be primarily used at a US government laboratory to monitor the US nuclear weapons stockpile. It will also find use in research in the fields of astronomy, energy, human genome science, and climate change.

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