supercomputing - News, Features, and Slideshows

News

• Unix server sales sink; IDC cites a perfect storm

  The Unix server business has been hit particularly hard during the current recession.

• The supercomputer on your desktop

  High-performance computing (HPC) has almost always required a supercomputer - one of those room-size monoliths you find at government research labs and universities.

• SGI offers supercomputing as a service

  SGI is rolling out what it believes is the first hosted supercomputing service on the market.

• Sandia tests supercomputer virtualization

  The U.S. Energy Department's Sandia National Laboratories is investigating the possibility of using virtualization to allow its researchers to make better use of its behemoth Red Storm supercomputer. Researchers from Northwestern University and the University of New Mexico are also participating in the project.

• 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.

• US Air Force taps PlayStation 3 for research

  The U.S. Air Force recently issued a request for proposals to purchase 2,200 Sony PlayStation 3 video game consoles. Does the Air Force plan to play lots of Grand Theft Auto?

• Gore says supercomputing can be killer app in climate change

  PORTLAND, Ore. -- Former Vice President Al Gore today told an audience of scientists, programmers and system builders at the SC09 conference here that their work is essential in the effort to avoid global catastrophe caused by climate change.

• Two rival supercomputers duke it out for top spot

  A Cray supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory has regained the title of the world's most powerful supercomputer, overtaking the installation that was ranked at the top in June, while China entered the Top 10 with a hybrid Intel-AMD system.

• New supercomputer to boost Aussie research (updated)

  Australia's newest and most powerful supercomputer, set to rocket into the world's top 40, will be launched in Canberra today.

• Microsoft acquisition adds to parallel computing focus

  Microsoft has purchased assets in a company that specializes in parallel computing, a function used mainly in supercomputing that Microsoft aims to develop for a broader audience, the company said Tuesday.

• Penguin puts high-performance computing in the cloud

  Penguin Computing, which builds high-performance Linux clusters for tasks like weather modelling and product design, is taking its business into the cloud.

• Germany, Saudi Arabia muscle into Top500 supercomputer list

  Computers in Germany and Saudi Arabia are now among the fastest in the world, but the bi-annual Top500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers is still topped by the Roadrunner system at the U.S. Department of Energy's Los Alamos National Laboratory.

• IBM offers high-performance computing services

  IBM on Thursday said it is now offering high-performance computing services to customers who want to get supercomputers up and running faster.

• BOM, Sun to build $30M supercomputer

  Amid rumours of Sun Microsystems being snapped up by IBM, the company has announced a whopping $30 million deal with Australia's Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) to build one of the largest high-performance computing environments in the southern hemisphere.

• China aims for petaflop computer in 2010

  China has stepped up investment in its homegrown Godson microprocessor and hopes to build its first petaflop-class supercomputer using the chip in 2010, one of the country's senior engineers said on Tuesday.