Military supercomputer reaches new milestone

A newly constructed American military supercomputer has surpassed the computing speed record at more than 1.026 quadrillion calculations per second, reaching the long-sought petaflop measurement, and sooner than expected. At this point, it doubly exceeds the speed of the previously fastest machine, I.B.M's BlueGene/L, who also made this, the aptly named 'Roadrunner.'

Part of the design includes 12,960 chips which function as an improved version of the company's Cell microprocessor, the parallel processing chip originally made for the PlayStation 3. The chips are used as 'accelerators' for portions of calculations.

Thomas P. D’Agostino, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, says if all six billion people in the world used hand calculators 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it would take them more than half a lifetime (46 years) to do what the Roadrunner is capable of in one day. I'm betting the Roadrunner itself performed that calculation.

The supercomputer cost $133 million (that's it?) and will be used "principally to solve classified military problems to ensure that the nation’s stockpile of nuclear weapons will continue to work correctly as they age." Here's the part I love, though: it will also be used to study scientific problems like climate change. I'm having trouble comprehending that proposition meeting.

Peter J. Ungaro, chief executive of Cray, a maker of supercomputers says “it’s a sign that we are maintaining our position," though pointing out “the real competitiveness is based on the discoveries that are based on the machines.”

Of course, there's always something left to achieve, and the next goals in mind are the exaflop, (one quintillion calculations per second), then the zettaflop, yottaflop and xeraflop. Many flops.