IBM dominates top ten supercomputers

BIGGISH Blue has dominated the latest list of the top ten supercomputers in the world with its BlueGene system.

According to the list, published by Scientific Computing Magazine here, IBM holds seven of the top ten slots including the top two.

According to the magazine, the most powerful commercially available computer is the BlueGene/L ß-System at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in California. It has 65,536 processors and turns out 136.8 teraflops.

Coming up behind the Livermore machine is the Watson Blue Gene at the Thomas J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights, New York, which weighs in at 40,960 processors and can manage 91.29 teraflops on a good day with a strong wind behind it.

One of the few non-IBM computers is in third place. The Columbia computer built by the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division it has 10,160 processors and, provided it doesn't crash, can manage 51.87 teraflops. µ