IBM unveils one-petaflop Blue Gene/P supercomputer

It was but two years ago that we all sat in awe of IBM's beautiful 280.6-teraflop masterpiece, and it's finally safe to call that workhorse a thing of the past. Today, Big Blue announced the second-generation of its famed supercomputer (dubbed Blue Gene/P), which reportedly comes close to "tripling the performance of its predecessor." In an attempt to showcase its might, IBM suggested that 27 million clinical trials could be computed "in just one afternoon using a sliver of its full power." Additionally, the engineers went the extra mile by crafting a highly scalable system that comes in "at least seven times more energy efficient than any other supercomputer," but we're sure those 294,912 processors (each touting four PowerPC 450 CPUs) can churn through some energy when utilizing the whole petaflop. And just think, Sun probably thought the 500 or so teraflop production from its forthcoming Ranger would be the (momentary) top dog.

Read - IBM's Blue Gene/P, via CNET
Read - Sun's Ranger, via Wired

[Charles Bandes @ Jun 26th 2007 2:40PM]

That's one petaflops, even though it sounds funny.

[Rocko @ Jun 26th 2007 4:52PM]

Actually, I'm curious, is there a place on that box to insert a cd, and play doom? Does this thing even have an operating system???

I am now crazily interested in the useless non-features this thing touts! How many iTunes songs can it download? How many illegal versions of Vista can it contain?

Can it be run as a server?!?!

I DON'T KNOW HOW SUPERCOMPUTERS WORK!!

[ryan bean @ Jun 26th 2007 2:43PM]

Ah but can it play Doom?

[Ken @ Jun 26th 2007 2:47PM]

Nothing can play Doom.

[TheGuy @ Jun 26th 2007 2:45PM]

I guess it'll take a few more months for folding@home to reclaim the title of most powerful computer network. It's surpassed 1 petaflop in the past, but it hasn't been consistent to those high levels.

[JoeX @ Jun 26th 2007 2:46PM]

I don't understand. What does this story have to do with the iPhone?

[CharlieX @ Jun 26th 2007 2:49PM]

You sir are a retard.

...and doesn't "clinical trial" denote testing on a living being?

[Chuck Wrona @ Jun 26th 2007 3:06PM]

HAHA! That Rules.

[NineT9 @ Jun 27th 2007 1:37PM]

lmaooo nice1

[Naysayer @ Jun 26th 2007 2:52PM]

Someone better catch the thing before it falls over.

[JoeX @ Jun 26th 2007 2:53PM]

It was a joke. A little too complicated for you, I guess?

[Mark @ Jun 26th 2007 3:00PM]

So when can we expect these to become selfaware and start the machine uprising?

[Yayaja @ Jun 26th 2007 3:04PM]

Can it come up with 42?

[Opposite Lock @ Jun 26th 2007 3:27PM]

Haha, I bet it can come up with 42, but it definitely can't figure out what the question is really asking.

[Paul @ Jun 26th 2007 3:11PM]

will we ever be able to figuire out pi?

[Mr. Sneakery @ Jun 26th 2007 3:14PM]

Its obviously at an angle because it's going so fast...

and with all that power, i really hope they aren't using integrated graphics... if they are, OH THE HUMANITY!

hopefully the beast has about 12 Quadro cards, bwahaha!

[HyperHacker @ Jun 26th 2007 9:06PM]

With a petaflop of processing power, I think software rendering will be plenty.

[Blake @ Jun 26th 2007 3:16PM]

I won't be satisfied 'til I see it running Windows Vista Omega edition.

All kidding aside, why does it have to look pretty too?

[Phil Perman @ Jun 26th 2007 3:19PM]

What happened to Blue Gene M N and O?

[MDB @ Jun 26th 2007 5:51PM]

Blue Gene M, N, and O were all contained in Blue Gene L. Apparently, the lead engineer thought LMNO was one letter.

Anyone get the SNL reference? Dan Aykroyd anybody?

Honey, would you lmnopen the door?

[Ben @ Jun 26th 2007 3:22PM]

I bet it could host a mean myspace stalker bot.

[Zeus the God @ Jun 26th 2007 3:37PM]

Yeah, but can you have sex with it?

[Blake Kachman @ Jun 26th 2007 3:38PM]

I can't wait to play WoW on it!

[js @ Jun 26th 2007 3:39PM]

Will it blend?

[tehpwnmstr @ Jul 23rd 2007 2:00AM]

Yes, it blends!

[MMalecky @ Jul 24th 2007 12:32AM]

Petaflop smoke: Don't breathe this!

[Gav @ Jun 26th 2007 3:43PM]

One petaflop? Seriously? Is that the best they can do... I expect more from IBM.

At LEAST 100 Exaflops.

Tsk.

[Beni @ Jun 26th 2007 6:51PM]

But can it tell time?

[Yudi @ Jun 26th 2007 7:24PM]

Think I could get one from Santa?

[Dahk @ Jun 26th 2007 8:05PM]

Soooo how long will it take for gigaquads to actually make sense =/.

[EUboy @ Jun 26th 2007 11:12PM]

congratulations!

[Chuckles McGee @ Jun 27th 2007 12:40AM]

Wow, 27 million clinical trials.... each trial involves about 100 people... We can drug 2.7 billion people EVERY DAY! Now we'll finally settle whether or not those deadly side effects are really all that deadly.

[mike @ Jul 10th 2007 5:03AM]

dear rocko (last poster),

yes. this thing can serve as a server... thats what it was designed to do.

yes, it COULD play doom, but thats not what it's designed for. It's meant to deliver/process massive amounts of information that yours and my computer could only dream of.

i'm sure there are slots for cd's as you stated, but mainly, its a massive, and I mean MASSIVE hard drive, with LOTS AND LOTS of computers connected..

basically it serves as a super server. me and u will probably never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever see something like this in person, yet we might use something similar on a daily basis and not know it. If you have a broadband internet connection..... well, they might have one. if u do any research on networking, most phone companies have broadband capabilities upward of 10 gb/s (that figure was taken about 7 years ago when i was in a networking class, so i can just imagine today), regardless, this computer serves one sole purpose, thats to hold and do alot of stuff at once; and i dont mean multi-task between IE, media player, AIM, etc., I mean hold entire cities worth of information.

read up on the technology. hell, browse this site a little more, and u can begin to fathom the things its capable of.

[Grimm @ Jul 23rd 2007 7:41PM]

Let's see how many times it can run crysis...1 million?

[Chimuel @ Jul 23rd 2007 8:25PM]

I wonder how many times and how fast it can finish an open ended game.

[Cryonaka @ Jul 23rd 2007 9:13PM]

I got an idea. Get this to take all the load of all these small, 12" laptops wirelessly, one server per 500 square miles. Then you can run anything on a small laptop and have almost infinite storage, and fast everything.

[Eric Iffland @ Jul 24th 2007 1:12AM]

294,912 processors... Woooooowwww IBM
I've got a Pentium 4... losers.