March, 2006 - Nr. 3
Europe’s fastest Computer goes Online at German Center
TWIG - Germany’s Juelich research center this week switched on Europe’s fastest computer, an IBM-built "Blue Gene" system that will make highly complex calculations for scientists working in fields like biology, chemistry and physics.
The computer, which can process up to 45.8 trillion operations per second, is about 15,000 times faster than the average home PC.
More than 200 European research groups are expected to use the new computer for applications such as forecasting the weather, predicting stock market movements and simulating the diffusion of pollutants in the atmosphere.
"It is a terrific tool for scientific programs which require immense calculating power," said Peter Schaefer, a Juelich-based scientist working on the system.
Juelich, one of three supercomputing centers in Germany and the biggest facility of its kind in Europe, is already home to a supercomputer called JUMP, with a peak performance of 8.9 teraflops, equivalent to 8.9 billion operations per second.
The launch of the new system comes amid steadily rising demand for computing power from scientists and academics — who are expected to need over one thousand times more computer power in five years than today, according to Juelich chief Joachim Treusch.
The world’s most powerful supercomputer is another IBM machine, a more advanced "Blue Gene" system at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories in California capable of a peak performance of 367 teraflops a second.
The Juelich system, which was funded by Germany’s federal
government and the state of North Rhine-Westphalia where Juelich is located,
supplants yet another IBM system, the Barcelona-based MareNostrum blade
cluster, as Europe’s fastest.
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