Compaq builds Europe's mightiest computer for Paris
LONDON, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Compaq Computer Corp [CPQ-news]
said on Wednesday it would build Europe's biggest supercomputer
for the French Atomic Energy Commission, the CEA, to help it keep
the country's nuclear stockpile safe without testing. "The Alpha
supercomputer will be over seven times more potent than Europe's
existing supercomputers and capable of handling a mammoth five
trillion operations per second," the company said in a statement.
One second of the computer's calculations will be the equivalent of
30,000 mathematicians working day and night for five years on
handheld calculators, or of all the world's six billion humans doing
their sums for 15 minutes each, it said.
"The Compaq Alpha supercomputer will use its...capacity to sustain
the reliability and safety of the French nuclear stockpile without new
nuclear tests," the Munich-based European division of Compaq said
in a statement released in London.
After a series of controversial nuclear tests in the south Pacific,
France has joined fellow nuclear power Britain in ratifying the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The U.S. Senate has rejected
signing the accord. |
