Researchers tout 20 million processor-strong supercomputer to study climate change
By Donald Melanson 
posted May 7th 2008 12:23PM
posted May 7th 2008 12:23PM
It looks like a group of researchers at UC Berkeley have come up with a rather unique way of solving the problem of getting supercomputers past the processing power / energy consumption barrier, with them now touting the possibility of using millions of low-power embedded microprocessors instead of conventional server processors. That tantalizing prospect has apparently already lead to a deal with Tensilica Inc, which will provide the Berkeley researchers with some of its Xtensa LX extensible processor cores to use as the "basic building blocks in a massively parallel system design." Ultimately, the researchers say they could one day build a massive supercomputer consisting of 20 million embedded microprocessors at a cost of $75 million, which they say would have a power consumption of less than 4 megawatts and a peak performance of 200 petaflops. That, they say, would be enough for it to create climate models at 1-kilometer scale or, as the researchers put it, more than 1,000 times more powerful than anything available today.[Via TG Daily]
How about duke nukem 3d or wolfenstein?
wow i feel old now
can it play beer pong?
Researchers create giant supercomputer to find answer to climate change. Computer concludes that all the power being used to run it is causing climate change; shuts itself down.
Thanks right people. A computer so powerful that cooling it will actually cause poplution from the gas turbine engines on the cooling system. They will be using a computer that literally pollutes to research the fact that pollution is changing the climate.
well, as the phrase goes - cant make something from nothing!
I say let them waste their time and money, as long as it's not my tax dollars.
and get off my lawn, too
Teleportation potential. Of course, this may not be hardly enough processing power, but at least it is a step in the right direction.
People have no sense of history.
Back to the future ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_Machines
do you suppose this machine takes into account the effect that itself will have on the environment when its doing all its calculations? Maybe when it finishes crunching all the numbers it will see itself as a threat to global climate change and destroy itself. That would be worth at least a couple papers on AI self awareness! rofl /scarcasm.
4 MW = 4 * 10^6 J/S
coal has an energy content of ~30 * 10^6 J/kg
to run this computer an hour, you would need to burn 480 kg of coal (4/30 * 3600), assuming 100% efficiency.
http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=294880707561262
.... I'm pretty sure that if they just put the project on boinc they would save a boatload of money. I would gladly lend my ps3 processing power for discounts or free games on psn. Sony should do something like that.
Well ....... this could play crisis @ at any resolution @ super high detail and FX x 10 million.
wait a minute, taxpayers are paying for this travesty?
Spoiler:
"the answer is 42."
or
"I calculated that yes, climate has changed!"
So when this computer is done studying climate change, will it then come to the conclusion that the only logical course of action is to "eliminate" the problem?
But can it play Roller Coaster Tycoon?
Joking aside, how much impact does a 1km climate model have? What are they hoping to accomplish with this?
Also, the purpose-built computer for this sounds impressive. It will be pretty cool when IBM gets their tiny optical iinterconnect to the market...machines like this one will hugely benefit from it.
What an honestly absurd project.
The power this thing is going to use will kill the planet long before it figure out that 1+1=3?
Good job computer... Oh and the genius that thought this one up, pat your self on the back.
that's where my 20 million CPUs went!
20M CPUs won't have any significant effect. This is a good idea that will guide the researchers to know more about climate behavior.
Someone said that why not use this for medical research.. Well worlds fastest supercomputer is already being used for it.
I was meaning "effect on climate"
This is madness!
'Ultimately, the researchers say they could one day build a massive supercomputer consisting of 20 million embedded microprocessors at a cost of $75 million, which they say would have a power consumption of less than 4 megawatts and a peak performance of 200 petaflops.'
4 megawatts?? 'Study climate change' I think they are just going to create a lot of emissions to speed the whole thing up and see what will happen. I can't drive a 4x4 because they pollute but they can use 4 megawatts of electricity!?!?! How much coal/carbon is that going to use/release?!?! You know what, I’m going to leave everything on standby, that’ll teach the a**holes.
CLIMATE CHANGE = FRAUD!!!!
wow, it's more like Idiocracy day by day in this country
are you saying im an idiot?
im not saying im the smartest person in the world but im probably above the bar
and i stand 110% by my original statement (p.s i dont know what "country" your referring to but im from australia)
Arguing that more than a quarter of the country's economic output, about $2 trillion, is vulnerable to extreme weather, these organisations urged the next U.S. president to help protect the USA from climate change by pushing for increased funding for research and forecasting, saying about $2 trillion of U.S. economic output could be hurt by storms, floods and droughts.
Now is this special pleading or do they have it right? For more go to
www.climatechagnetraige.net