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A new IBM supercomputer performed one million billion calculation operations per second

The historical speed record belongs to an IBM supercomputer installed in the US defense system that will be twice as powerful as the computer that topped the table until now - deep blue, also from IBM

IBM's ROADRUNNER supercomputer will replace Deep Blue
IBM's ROADRUNNER supercomputer will replace Deep Blue

An IBM supercomputer, operating in the service of the United States security system and nicknamed Roadrunner, broke the petaflops barrier for the first time in the history of computing: a quadrillion processing operations per second when it performed 1.025 quadrillion calculation operations per second. One quadrillion is one million billion.

For the sake of illustration: within one working day, IBM's new computer completes a number of operations equal to what all seven billion people in the world could do, when each of them holds a calculator in their hands, and performs operations around the clock, for 46 years.

IBM's new supercomputer is intended to be used for research in the field of nuclear weapons. The new performance record is twice the performance of the computer that held first place until now - the BlueGene/L system, also from IBM, operating at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

IBM's Roadrunner computer got its name thanks to the national bird of the state of New Mexico, which is also known to viewers of cartoons as a character that piles on the wolf that is chasing it thanks to its unimaginable speed, and overtakes it while calling "beep-beep".

The computer that set the world record was built by engineers and scientists at IBM facilities and at the Los Alamos Nuclear Laboratory, New Mexico. His main tasks will include solving classified problems concerning the maintenance of the US nuclear weapons stockpile even in the era of aging of these weapons. Roadrunner will simulate the behavior of the atomic bomb in the first fraction of a second after it has been set off.

Before being transferred to the designated classified computing environment, the computer holding the new record will also be used for scientific processing in areas such as climate change research and weather forecasting. The faster than ever speed will allow scientists to study more accurate and more complex climate models than ever before.

IBM's new system is an unacceptable combination of processors used for electronic consumer products such as game consoles - and advanced technologies in the field of parallel computing. The technological insights born in the work process and the development of the new computer will serve both the world of corporate-central computing, both the world of personal computing and the field of mobile computing.

The revolutionary structure of Roadrunner includes 116,640 processing cores in 12,960 IBM Cell microprocessors and a small number of AMD processors, which perform parallel processing at the chip level itself. Originally designed for Sony's PlayStation 3 game console, Cell processors are used to accelerate some of the calculations performed on the supercomputer. At the same time, the computer also includes a smaller number of Opteron processors manufactured by AMD - which are already widely used in corporate servers. This processing power is packaged in the structure of standard IBM blade servers, and is managed entirely in the Linux operating system environment.

The Roadrunner's electricity consumption is about three megawatts - and weighs that of a typical shopping mall. The combination of three different types of processors within one machine requires the system operators to use three sets of programming tools, in order to ensure full utilization of all 116,640 processing cores at any moment.

Computers such as IBM's Roadrunner may fundamentally change the face of the world of science and engineering. Researchers will be able to present problems, receive almost immediate answers - and perform virtual experiments under conditions that cannot be simulated in the real world.

12 תגובות

  1. Antimatter is not according to certain theories. Antimatter particles were discovered many decades ago. You don't need antimatter to get matter from energy and you don't need to mobilize special theories for that.
    Matter and antimatter are constantly forming spontaneously in the void and re-ionizing each other. In the vicinity of a black hole they don't even qualify.

  2. For the mad physicist:
    It seems to me that you are trying to justify the nickname you chose.
    Even in a particle accelerator, you don't know what will happen in any collision between particles that are launched in a controlled manner, and you want a system that will chase every particle (including photons) emitted from the explosion and merge it with energy that should be available at the right time, in the right nature (including kinetic) and in the right place and get a predictable result? It even contradicts the uncertainty principle.

  3. Actually yes, maybe, I mean.
    It is not exactly in development but according to certain theories that talk about matter and anti-matter. It will be possible to combine the energy from the explosion with antimatter and get matter.
    That is, the same material that participated in the explosion.
    Of course, this is far from conclusive since even the theories on the subject are not developed and in relation to many other things are "in their infancy".

  4. I don't understand what is so important about what happens in the first second of an atomic explosion, if what happens after a second, a minute, an hour, a day, etc. is known.

    What, they have secret research looking at how to reverse the process, and basically prevent a bomb that goes off from exploding?

    For the physicists here - is it actually possible to find a process that will make an atomic explosion?

  5. mummy..
    What will happen if one day this roadrunner can turn on us and destroy the world

  6. I will tell you if this computer is worth something or not!
    The test begins:

    1) the 4

  7. Is there any news from the computer built in Switzerland that is supposed to imitate human brain actions?

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