IBM “Powers” to Victory on TOP500 Supercomputer List

IBM “Powers” to Victory on TOP500 Supercomputer List

A surge in the number of IBM® Power® technology-based supercomputers enabled IBM to seize the number one ranking on the just-released TOP500 Supercomputer Sites List. Overall, IBM (NYSE: IBM) systems accounted for 237 of the 500 most powerful supercomputers in the world and 49.6% the total processing power. The IBM Blue Gene®/L system, developed with the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration and installed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, topped the list with a sustained performance of 280.6 teraflops, or trillions of floating point calculations per second. IBM’s supercomputer MareNostrum at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, based on the IBM BladeCenter® JS21 blade server, regained its position as the most powerful supercomputer in Europe.

The number of systems based on the Power Architecture™ increased to 91 from 83 on the previous list, published in June. IBM’s industry-leading performance was also propelled by its strength across diverse computing platforms: including growth in the number of Blue Gene systems (from 24 to 28, compared with the previous list) and IBM clusters based on AMD Opteron systems (from 31 to 55). IBM BladeCenter systems grew from 132 to 145 systems since the June, 2006 TOP500 rankings. IBM BladeCenter technology-based systems accounted for more than 636 teraflops of total performance in the November list. BladeCenter systems offer clients an innovative and high density computing solution with the ability to combine servers, storage, networking, and software all in one system.

“IBM’s leadership in supercomputing continues, attributable to our ability to offer customers the widest array of high performance computing solutions in the industry today,” said Dave Turek, vice president, Deep Computing, IBM. “IBM systems — in many cases designed and deployed in partnership with our clients — are pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery, enabling the emergence of virtual worlds and advanced simulation and driving deep innovation among our commercial clients.”

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