IBM Sequoia: Fastest Computer in the World

The US super computer Sequoia has been crowned as the fastest computer in the world.

• Placed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California
• Can make 16.32 quadrillion calculations/second (16.32 petaflops/s)
• A petascale Blue Gene/Q supercomputer
• Sequoia helps the US keep its nuclear stockpile safe, secure and effective without the need for underground testing.
• Constructed by IBM for the National Nuclear Security Administration as part of the Advanced Simulation and Computing Program (ASC).
• Delivered to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 2011 and was fully deployed in June 2012.

The TOP500 Project Committee announced on 14 June 2012  that Sequoia replaced the K computer as the world’s fastest supercomputer.

• LINPACK performance of Sequoia is 16.32 petaflops i.e. 55% faster than the K Computer’s 10.51 petaflops.
• Sequoia is also more energy efficient, as it consumes 7.9 MW, 37% less than K computer’s 12.6 MW.

Top 10 Supercomputers of the world:

1. Sequoia – US
2. K Computer – Japan
3. Mira – US
4. SuperMUC – Germany
5. Tianhe-IA – China
6. Jaguar – US
7. Fermi – Italy
8. JuQueen – Germany
9. Curie thin nodes – France
10. Nebulae – China

U.S. is the top consumer of high-performance systems. The US holds 253 out of 500 systems, biggest share of world’s fastest computers. Asia holds 121 systems, including China (68 systems) and Japan (34 systems). Europe has 107 systems with the U.K. (25), France (22) and Germany (20) at the forefront. Countries such as Israel, Canada, United Arab Emirates and Australia also appeared in the list of nations with top 500 systems.

Where does India rank on the chart of top 500 computers?

• 2 supercomputers from India listed in the top 100
• CSIR Centre for Mathematical Modeling and Computer Simulation (C-MMACS), stood at 58^th position
• SAGA-220, by ISRO and the IISc, ranked 86
• PARAM 8000 is generally considered as India’s 1^st supercomputer. It was developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in collaboration with Russia

The Top 500 Supercomputer list is prepared by The University of Mannheim, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville

RELATED LINKS:

• K Computer
• China’s Tianhe-IA

Month: Current Affairs - June, 2012