supercomputers - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Supercomputing Top500 brews discontent

  Like Hollywood's Academy Awards, the Top500 list of supercomputers is dutifully watched by high-performance computing (HPC) participants and observers, even as they vocally doubt its fidelity to excellence.

• Nvidia chief scientist: CPUs slowed by legacy design

  When it comes to power-efficient computing, CPUs are weighed down by too many legacy features to outperform GPUs (graphics processing units) in executing common tasks in parallel, said the chief scientist for the GPU vendor Nvidia.

• China rocks Top 500 supercomputer list

  A new supercomputer installation in China has rocketed to the top of the twice-annual ranking of the world's most powerful supercomputers.

• Lustre settles into post-Oracle life

  Despite reassurances from Oracle, advocates of yet another ex-Sun Microsystems technology are voicing concern about the future of their software. In this latest case, the technology is Lustre, a file system widely used across the supercomputing community.

• Purdue app slows servers when cooling fails

  While chip manufacturers continue to make their processors ever more powerful, at least one customer has found it useful to slow these chips down, at least long enough to keep them running when the data center air conditioning falters.

• GPUs boost supercomputers' energy efficiency

  Supercomputers that mix CPUs with graphics processors made their mark on the Green500 list of top energy-efficient supercomputers released on Wednesday.

• CSIRO joins new CUDA program

  The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) has been selected as a member of NVIDIA’s international network of research centres as a part of its new Compute Unified Device Architecture (CUDA) program.

• China flexes supercomputing muscle in Top 500 rankings

  China flexed its computing muscle with a supercomputer called Nebulae, rocketing to second place on the biannual Top500 list, which ranks the most powerful computers in the world.

• Bull bills Tera 100 as Europe's first petaflop computer

  French server and services company Bull has just turned on a new supercomputer for the French Atomic Energy Authority (CEA) that it hopes will reach a peak performance of 1.25 petaflops later this year.

• IBM's Newest Supercomputer Mixes Intel, Nvidia Chips

  IBM's newest supercomputer utilizes both <a href="http://www.intel.com/?en_US_01">Intel</a> and <a href="http://www.nvidia.com/content/global/global.php">Nvidia</a> chips--the first time that IBM has ever mixed the two processors in a supercomputer, <a href="http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20005218-64.html">according to a CNET report</a>.

• PlayStation 3 OS changes affect Air Force

  Late last year, we brought you a story reporting that the U.S. Air Force commissioned a $2 million purchase for thousands of PlayStation 3 consoles in order to create a supercomputer capable of running complex military programs, with the PS3's cell processor and ability to run alternative operating systems were cited as major factors in the decision.

• DSD gets Cray supercomputer

  The agency responsible for combating cyber security threats to Australia, the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), has taken charge of a Cray Inc supercomputer.

• Melbourne University gets supercomputer to study diseases

  Up to 10,000 scientists will team up with computer experts and a supercomputer at the University of Melbourne to study human diseases.

• Govt brews national cloud for science

  Australian scientists will have access to a multi-million dollar national cloud network and $50 million towards a petabyte supercomputer and data centre within three to five years under slated improvements to the nation's grid networks.

• Scientists, IT Community Await Exascale Computers

  The race is on to develop a new generation of far more powerful supercomputers that could help solve some of the world's most vexing problems.